BirdLife Malta today demanded that before any spring hunting decision is announced the government must publish the number of birds shot and trapped in 2008, questioning the reasons for the delay.
The carnet de chasse 2008 report was due for publication last year, but repeated requests by BirdLife during Ornis meetings and directly to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to make the records public were ignored. The latest request was made April 1 but no reply was forthcoming.
BirdLife Malta also drew attention to the fact that the European Commission has also not received the report.
BirdLife Malta executive director Tolga Temuge said: “We have always stated that the carnet de chasse is a gross underestimation of the true scale of hunting.
However, since the government based its defence at the European Court of Justice on the figures hunters provided, and since the government is planning to open another spring hunting season based on the previous years’ carnet de chasse figures, then it is crucial that the data is made public for the necessary scrutiny to be made.”
BirdLife Malta raised the possibility that figures, even if under-reported, did not paint the picture the government expected.
“Bird sightings from 2008 clearly showed that during the autumn migration, following the first ever spring hunting ban that year, the number of common quails that migrated over Malta were significantly higher than in spring.
If this were revealed in the figures, it would crush the government’s argument that autumn was not a satisfactory alternative to spring hunting,” Mr Temuge added.
Since the government presented a derogation plan to the European Commission last month, it was strange that the figures for 2008 had not yet been handed over to the Commission, BirdLife Malta said.
Malta had used carnet de chasse figures from the past until 2007, when it attempted to justify the spring hunting derogation at the European Court of Justice.
Based on the low figures presented by Malta, the Court stated that autumn hunting did not seem to be an alternative to spring.
Malta still lost the case at the ECJ since the country did not meet other conditions needed for a derogation, BirdLife said adding that the government, however, decided to interpret the ECJ ruling as offering the opportunity to open another spring hunting season.
BirdLife Malta said that regardless of the ‘alternative solution’ condition for a derogation, both turtle dove and common quail were listed as Species of Conservation Concern in Europe.
Thus, no derogation should be applied according to the European Commission's own hunting guide to the Birds Directive, it said.