A total of 207 hunting contraventions have been recorded by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) since September 9, the organisation said.

It said in a statement that some of these contraventions were recorded on video.

The offences included 29 direct shooting or hits on protected bird species. A total 27 protected birds were found dead or observed in flight with obvious shotgun injuries. These species included a Lesser Spotted Eagle as well as Marsh Harriers, Honey Buzzards, Kestrels, Bee-eaters, Barn Swallows and Swifts and Finches.

Other offences involved the use of automatic weapons and electronic bird lures, illegal trapping and flouting of the afternoon hunting curfew.

CABS said that these statistics did not include the 12 protected birds found in a five-metre ditch on the Dwejra Lines on September 14.

At this location, four days earlier, a CABS team had observed two men shooting at Bee-eaters, Barn Swallows and other small birds.

Committee spokesman Axel Hirschfeld said:

"The men responsible for this massacre were identified by the police from video material provided by us. It shows two individuals who have come to the attention of the police previously in connection with illegal hunting. "Both of them have admitted shooting the Bee-eaters at this place and time and will now have to reckon with criminal proceedings being taken against them."

CABS said that another serious incident took place last Sunday in the fields between Fiddien and Mtahleb, where some 80 Marsh Harriers had come to roost shortly before dusk.

A BirdLife standing patrol on watch at the site witnessed several people with torches entering the site around 9 p.m. and firing several shots at the birds.

A stand-by CABS team was alerted by BirdLife and scanned the area with a thermo-camera.

Five people were located huddled in a darkened vehicle parked on a track adjacent to the harriers.

The video material was handed over to the Rabat police who called in the owner of the vehicle for assistance in their enquiries.

CABS said the man at first denied being present at the scene of the crime but when he was shown the video material he admitted to having been in the vicinity of the birds.

CABS said it published a Youtube video that shows the shooting down of Honey Buzzards in Gudja, Fawwara, Ghar Lapsi and near the Malta International Airport runway.

The film also shows bird guards extricating dead song birds (two Red-backed Shrikes and a Common Redstart) from an illegal mist net discovered under Nadur Tower, and freeing a living Bee-eater from the same trap.

A second illegal clap net was found by a CABS patrol near the Fiddien water reservoir on Monday.

It was removed and confiscated by ALE officers.

Other film sequences show birds of prey with shotgun injuries in flight, freshly-shot Bee-eaters and the illegal use of electronic bird decoys for Quail hunting.

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