The true facts about finch trapping

While trying to "refrain from inundating the opinion pages of The Times with (their) letters", the campaigns coordinator of BirdLife Malta, Geoffrey Saliba, wrote another letter (October17).

Since the facts are not as he chose to represent them, I write to dispel any misinformation he has given The Times readers. Apart from stating the obvious about EU laws and derogations, he contradicts himself by first stating that "in Malta a few finches breed sporadically" and then in the next sentence lamenting about "the local extinction of these songbirds".

The truth is, there is not one single species extinct among the songbird species migrating over Malta, in spite of centuries of bird-trapping. The other truth is that despite the two-year ban on spring trapping, there has been no change in the local nesting pattern of the songbirds in question - two years, same sporadic nesting!

If these song-birds "are actually garden birds in other EU countries", there is nothing to prevent them from breeding in the profuse gardens of Malta with their luxuriant foliage, abundant running water, inexhaustible fountains, green lawns and splendid isolation! Autumn/winter finch trapping does not constitute a threat to sporadic local finch nesting, as witnessed by Birdlife Malta's reports of a pair of chaffinches (sponsuni) breeding outside their Buskett stronghold this spring, when autumn/winter finch trapping was still being practised last year.

I reiterate that finches are kept in small cages (gabjetti) during the trapping season only and also that they outlive by far, their wild counterparts.

The Mepa study of 2004, according to which 20 per cent of wild caught finches die in their first year of captivity, was carried out when spring trapping of linnets was still legal. The mortality rate of linnets captured in spring, though indeed high, is irrelevant in this case because linnets may no longer be trapped in spring.

Mr Saliba writes of "the environmental damage they (trappers) have caused to Malta's wildlife". What environmental damage? Respect the EU's nature conservation laws, he asks of trappers, ignoring the fact that the few thousand birds caught locally in a good year are an insignificant proportion of the European populations of the species (about 0.12 per cent). Mr Saliba believes "that many trappers can be happy diverting their energy and passion for these birds into hobbies like captive finch breeding, bird watching, and conservation work".

He should note that trappers already do so: "captive finch breeding" requires finches to be made captive; "bird watching" is what trappers do 99 per cent of the time, as they are not tugging at their clap-nets every minute; and conservation of their land and captured birds is what trappers do all the time.

Applying for a derogation is every country's legal right, not a means to bypass any "uncomfortable legislation"!

Finally, on March 7, this year the EU Environment Commission Representative in Malta confirmed that Malta may apply for a derogation to permit finch-trapping. BirdLife Malta should take note of that declaration.

The FKNK (Federation for Hunting and Conservation) is currently working to prepare the ground for that eventuality. It will then be up to the government to apply a derogation as required, a step it is ethically and morally bound to take as a consequence of its much vaunted written guarantees to all registered trappers prior to EU accession.