Hunters ‘must be really poor shots’

Local hunters are either very poor shots or they are not reporting the actual number of birds killed during the current spring hunting season, Birdlife Malta said yesterday.

Six teams of Spring Watch volunteers had recorded over 7,500 shots during permitted hunting hours since the camp began on April 10, BLM executive director Paul Debono told a news conference.

“If the hunters have not reached the quota yet then Maltese hunters must be really poor shots,” Mr Debono said.

Spring Watch teams can only cover around 10 per cent of Malta and Gozo in one day, Mr Debono estimated, so “it’s probably fair to say that the total shots are at least three times what we recorded”.

Under the terms of this year’s controversial spring hunting season permitted by the government, Malta’s 5,600 licensed hunters are allowed to shoot 9,000 turtledoves and 2,500 quails from April 13 until the end of the month or when the quota is reached, but no more than one each per day and four in the whole season.

They are meant to send a text message to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority each time they kill a bird to enable the authority to keep tabs on the season.

“A spring hunting derogation that runs for almost three weeks but only permits almost two birds per hunter on average is a farce,” Mr Debono said. “The fact that the hunters barely objected to the quota on the number of birds they can kill as long as they were given around three weeks to shoot is precisely the reason why we suspect most of them will not be reporting their catch honestly.”

Birdlife’s conservation officer Nicholas Barbara said Spring Watch volunteers had recorded over 800 instances of illegal hunting and trapping since April 10.

Common violations of the spring hunting conditions sanctioned by the government included hunting outside of permitted hours and hunters’ failure to wear designated armbands. Hunting is not permitted after 3 p.m. on weekdays and at all on Sundays.

Shot protected birds had also been handed over to Birdlife, including two hoopoes, two common kestrels, one marsh harrier and one cuckoo over the last 12 days.

Volunteers recorded a further 14 protected birds with injuries consistent with gunshot injuries.

Geoffrey Saliba, Birdlife’s campaigns coordinator, told The Sunday Times there had been a marked increase in the “disgusting practice” of illegal night hunting this spring, possibly because of increased daytime surveillance by Spring Watch volunteers, the police Administrative Law Enforcement unit and the 43 hunting marshals recruited specifically for the season.

“It’s hard to prevent because we can hear the shots but we can’t see where they are taking place. Hunters approach sleeping birds, shine a light in their faces and shoot them at point-blank range – there is no skill involved whatsoever,” he said.

Meanwhile, further doubt was cast on the legality of spring hunting by Veronika Ferdinandova, a Birdlife volunteer and biodiversity project officer for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in Belgrade, who attended yesterday’s press conference to discuss the conservation status of turtle dove and quail.

When the European Court of Justice found that Malta had failed to comply with the conditions for a derogation of the EU Birds Directive when it permitted spring hunting from 2004 to 2007, the ruling did note that the IUCN listed turtle dove and quail as species of ‘least concern’ from a conservation perspective. However, Ms Ferdinandova said this had been misinterpreted by those seeking to justify the hunting of these species in spring, as although they were listed as ‘least concern’ globally, in Europe they have un­favourable conservation status. Therefore, they should not be hunted in spring, when they are returning to their rearing grounds.

“This is clear from the European Commission point of view,” she told The Sunday Times.

Reacting, Kaċċaturi San Ubertu said that hunters were cooperating with authorities to prevent or minimise abuse, and accused BLM of being unable to admit that things had improved “drastically”.