Thursday, April 8, 2010, 7.15 p.m. I am across from the Salina saltpans observing a fine specimen of an oystercatcher, quite a large, scarce wading bird and also a protected species, resting and occasionally feeding in the marshy ground. All of a sudden a shot rings out and this poor creature meets its death at the hands of some ruthless hunter, who comes out running, picks it up and scrambles out of site with his trophy behind the retaining walls of the saltpans.

All this happened in broad daylight next to a main road, with dwellings on both sides, in the closed season and in a bird sanctuary. May I add that episodes of this kind are very common at this place and most probably a group of elite hunters (or, as FKNK officials prefer to call them, poachers) are using the area as their place for selective shooting of rare birds. The sad thing is that reporting to the ALE is useless as, from past experience, by the time they arrive, the law breakers would have vanished.

Also for the past weeks a tape lure of golden plovers and sometimes alternating with the call of quails could be heard playing most nights till dawn from an area across the saltpans called Il-Qadi. Probably this is being used to attract waders to an illegal trapping site.

This and other hunting illegalities show a very different picture from what the hunters' association is claiming, that its members are suffering from serious psychological problems as, although it's the closed season, birds are still being slaughtered in broad daylight and in inhabited areas.