In his Talking Point (December 18) Geoffrey Saliba of BirdLife Malta tries to take readers for a ride with his warped contortion of the facts about bird trapping.

If, as he wrote, staff of the LIFE+ Project on Bird Migration and Trapping have been meeting trappers over the past year to talk about the current situation, then these trappers were certainly not Maltese. Mr Saliba's statement is merely a ploy to give the impression that BirdLife Malta (BLM) are consulting Maltese trappers. Consultation was a condition imposed by Mepa for BirdLife to be granted thousands more euros for their LIFE+Project.

Contrary to what Mr Saliba thinks, trapping is the most important part of the trappers' way of life. Without it, they would be just breeders, if at all. BLM's dreaming of Malta's trappers turning to "cage bird competitions, studying wild birds and a range of hobbies in between" betrays a total disregard for the feelings of Maltese trappers, and complete ignorance in the subject matter. This is truly a case where birds are being given priority over the welfare of human beings for the wrong reasons. Influenced by his foreign mentors, BirdLife Malta's Campaigns Coordinator labours under the illusion that "with the cessation of finch trapping on the Maltese islands, our environment can slowly recover. With time finches could set up breeding populations, as are present on other small central Mediterranean islands like Lampedusa and Linosa".

It is ridiculous to compare Malta (circa 1,300 persons per square kilometre) to Lampedusa (262) and Linosa (74). Human disturbance and other factors peculiar to our island do not favour breeding of finches in the wild. In fact, although no autumn trapping was permitted this year and no spring trapping was allowed for the past three years, there are no wintering finches present, and there were no breeding ones either.

Contrary to what Mr Saliba wrote, trapping is permitted in certain EU states by the application of derogations. When Malta joined the EU it negotiated an agreement whereby the trapping of seven finch species would continue, albeit in different circumstances and under certain conditions in line with the Accession Treaty and the Birds Directive. Unfortunately, the government failed to implement in full the stipulated programme, and when the transitional period ended in December 2008, the government was not in a position to open the finch trapping season without risking being taken to court.

However, on March 7, 2009 the EU Environment Commission Representative in Malta confirmed that Malta may apply a derogation to permit finch trapping. Subsequently, in answer to a parliamentary question last May, the Prime Minister stated that the project of breeding of finches at the government experimental farm at Għammieri had been a success. The next logical step for the government to take is to grant finch trapping licences under derogation, thus ensuring the genetic diversity of all the finches in local aviaries, in line with EU policy.

The Federation for Hunting & Conservation - Malta (FKNK) is actively working in that direction.