A rare Stone-curlew has been handed to BirdLife Malta with gunshot injuries, bringing the total number of shot protected birds received by the organisation this autumn to 64.
The bird was found by Joseph Farell, the director of the Tarxien Youth Centre, BirdLife said.
It was immediately taken to a veterinarian who confirmed that the bird suffered serious gunshot injuries to its right wing and both legs, and was in a state of starvation indicating that the injury had occurred several days ago.
“This is yet another case of a protected bird that is the focus of large conservation projects in other European countries migrating over Malta and being subsequently shot,” said Birdlife’s conservation manager Andre Raine.
“As a result of the irresponsible and selfish actions of Maltese poachers, Malta has lost many of its important breeding birds such as Peregrine Falcon and Barn Owl a long time ago.
“Now migratory protected birds are being gunned down and every single rare bird like the Stone-curlew that is killed in Malta can have an impact on the population of these species in other European countries,” Dr Raine said.
BirdLife stated that the Stone-curlew is the 64th shot protected bird the organisation received since the beginning of the migration season. This was an increase of 129 percent over the same period last year, when a total of 28 protected birds were received by BirdLife.
The Stone-curlew, a rare protected species, is a rare visitor to the Maltese islands and is given extra protection by the Birds Directive. It is listed as vulnerable by the European Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.