The sound of two shots being fired led a young woman to run to the balcony from where she saw a man leaving the Salina bird sanctuary with a dead Hungarian Spoonbill in his hand on Thursday afternoon.
“As the man made his way out of the sanctuary he lifted the bird. That’s when I saw that it was a big, white bird. It was dead. The man, who she said was “black”, went into a blue-coloured car driven by another man. The number plates were covered by what looked like black sticky tape,” the witness recounted.
They sped off towards Qawra.
A day earlier, the woman’s grandfather, a bird enthusiast, phoned to let her know a Spoonbill, a protected species, had settled near the salt pans close to her house.
“When I saw that the dead bird was big and white, I realised it must be the one my grandfather had mentioned,” she said, asking not to be mentioned by name for fear of reprisal. BirdLife Malta condemned the act and issued an appeal for information about the shooting of the Spoonbill, which, it said, occurred at about 3.30 p.m.
“The bird was part of a Europe-wide study on Spoonbills by a group of specialist ringing researchers. It was ringed with a unique combination of six coloured rings as a chick in Fejer, Hungary, in June 2009... It arrived in Malta earlier this week, staying in the Salina bird sanctuary area... until it was shot,” BirdLife said.
This was the second time in a few months that a protected ringed bird was shot at the Salina sanctuary. A German ringed osprey was recovered by BirdLife after being shot there last October.
Apart from the fact that the bird was protected, it was shot in the closed season and in a sanctuary where hunting was not allowed, BirdLife said.
Anyone with information about the shooting can call the police on 2122 4001 or BirdLife on 2134 7646.
St Hubert Hunters unreservedly condemned the shooting but took a dig at BirdLife saying that, unfortunately, though many relevant details of the perpetrators were known to the organisation, their prowess did not serve to identify them.
The hunters urged anyone who might have witnessed the incident to forward any relevant details to the police.
They said they hoped that apart from providing excellent pictures of birds and sensational news, BirdLife might also consider providing incriminating evidence of the law breakers they witnessed.