Cats and the plight of bird trapping

The news that bird trapping in Malta ended in 2008 must have come as a sigh of relief for all those accusing Malta's trappers of affecting the European population of song birds.

Apart from the fact that the perception of most people objecting to this practice is based on hearsay, untruths and misinformation, the Maltese government, notwithstanding its pre-EU referendum guarantee of the continuance of both spring and autumn trapping for seven finch species, recently endorsed a €175,000 EU grant to Birdlife Malta which is to be used to initiate a campaign on the detrimental effect of bird trapping in Malta.

The general perception from objectors to this custom are that the birds caught are eaten, blinded or maimed to be used as decoys, millions are caught and that consequently Malta's trappers are to blame for the decline of the species concerned. None of these objections are true and no BirdLife Malta official has ever had the decency to publicly correct these untruths. On the contrary they relish any form of criticism as it only adds support to the abolition of trapping and to their anti-hunting stand in general.

The true facts and figures have been made public by the trappers' association (FKNK). A few thousand finches are trapped annually. All are kept alive for breeding purposes, as decoys for the next year's trapping season and for the enjoyment of their song. This practice is not only a Maltese custom, it is also practised in a totally acceptable manner to the EU, in Spain, France, Italy and Austria. The seven finch species trapped locally, according to the IUCN and based on Birdlife International observations, all share a status of least concern in terms of global population. But who really cares about statistics or the truth for that matter!

If the EU were truly concerned about priorities, the Maltese government about its guarantees to trappers and its country's customs and BirdLife Malta about bird populations, then this bit of information taken from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) UK website might make them realise how ridiculous and biased their stand against Malta's few bird trappers truly is: www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/birddeclines.asp.

"The most recent figures are from the Mammal Society, which estimates that the UK's cats catch up to 275 million prey items a year, of which 55 million are birds. This is the number of prey items that were known to have been caught; we don't know how many more the cats caught, but didn't bring home, or how many escaped but subsequently died."

So are all the EU efforts, together with those of our gullible government and the RSPB's partner BirdLife Malta truly concentrated on the true culprits of bird decline?

Unashamedly, the RSPB try and excuse these facts by stating on the same website that "Despite the large numbers of birds killed, there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide."

It seems the only "scientific evidence" available is that which is being used against Malta's trappers. A total of 55,000,000 million birds or more killed by cats in the UK alone are of no concern as they are not "having any impact on bird populations"; it is only the few birds trapped and kept alive by Maltese trappers that seem to matter.

The hypocrisy and deceit of our bird protectionists BirdLife Malta and the RSPB, coupled by the blind support from the EU and our government, should make anyone unbiased realise that bird protection is not the real issue. Malta's hunters and trappers have been targeted for extinction simply to set an example to other EU countries.

This is what the EU Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas stated and this is what our government, that when need be guaranteed these practices, is unashamedly implementing.

What exactly is Malta's government trying to achieve? Certainly not credibility from those expecting guarantees on their practices to be maintained.