Over the last few weeks Birdlife said it received 14 shot protected birds and reports of widespread shooting of birds of prey, particularly following unstable weather over the Mediterranean two weeks ago.
Stormy weather two weeks ago brought in a considerable migration of falcons and kestrels. At the beginning of last week alone, BirdLife said it received five common kestrels with verified gunshot injuries. Three of them had to be put down and the other two were passed over to the police for rehabilitation.
Rare migrant birds observed in the last few days had also been targeted, such as a black stork, gunned down in Ħal Far, and a greater flamingo, chased by sea hunters, the conservation group said.
“A black stork which had just escaped shots fired from Qala was gunned down by sea hunters over the Gozo channel. The sea hunters handed the stork over to two individuals on motorbikes in Qala before heading back out to sea,” BirdLife reported.
Police sources confirmed the reports, saying officers too had handed a number of protected birds to the veterinary services for treatment. “I would say the situation has not deteriorated over previous seasons but it has not improved either,” an officer said. “We book two to three hunters and trappers every day.”
BirdLife said the number of shot birds it received were really the tip of the iceberg. “The chances of the BirdLife office receiving a shot protected bird is very remote because the bird has first to escape the illegal hunter, then be found by somebody willing to handle it and, eventually, it is taken to BirdLife,” said Tolga Temuge, BirdLife Malta executive director.
Since the end of Raptor Camp, BirdLife said its office had received 14 shot protected birds and only two legally huntable birds, a common quail and a moorhen. “Since there are about 12,000 licensed shooters in Malta who can legally shoot over 30 bird species, this disproportion between the huntable species and protected species received suggests that protected birds continue to be prized targets in Malta,” he added.
As an EU member state, Malta has an obligation to enforce the Birds Directive.
“Lack of strong law enforcement in the countryside, coupled with low fines by the courts, encourages the poachers who flout national and EU laws. We once again call on the government to immediately establish a wildlife crime unit and increase the minimum penalties to a level that would act as serious deterrent,” Mr Temuge concluded.