The Malta Environment and Planning Authority is commissioning a last minute study on turtle dove and quail migration in spring. The study is planned to start in nine days, BirdLife said.

The organisation said it received an invitation from an environment consultancy firm appointed to carry out the study on Thursday evening, giving it Sunday as a deadline to confirm its participation.

BirdLife said the invitation came as a surprise to the organisation, which was invited to participate at the last minute, without any prior consultation and without being provided any justification for the commissioning of the study on the eve of possibly another spring hunting season in April.

"This study is one of a series of events which has highlighted the run-up of the 2012 spring hunting saga, with decisions being taken behind closed doors and without proper discussion and consultation at the Ornis Committee," it said.

BirdLife said that the consultancy firm director confirmed to BirdLife that it was approached by Mepa to carry out the study very recently. The firm said it had to start the surveys on April 9.

"Mepa has left almost no time to concerned parties to contribute to the methodology of the proposed study and take an informed decision before they can commit their resources," BirdLife president Joseph Mangion said.

He said last year Mepa had commissioned the same firm to conduct a similar study in May, missing out on the peak migration periods of turtle dove and quail in April.

"Mepa's so called study suggests that birds should be counted by a hunter, a BirdLife ornithologist and a third person. Yet, when it comes to the counts of birds shot or trapped, Mepa conveniently relies solely on hunters and trappers' declarations. This alone shows Mepa's double standards and its bias towards the hunting lobby," Mr Mangion said.

BirdLife siad the proposed migration study was to be based on the flawed methodology of the government study initiated in 2007 to justify its spring hunting derogations.

The initial methodology had been devised by J.C. Ricci, who has affiliations with the French hunting lobby and who produced studies with the aim of extending hunting periods for migratory species, BirdLife said.

It said Ricci's methodology in 2007 was heavily criticised by some Ornis Committee members, BirdLife and the British Trust for Ornithology, one of Europe's most respected ornithological organisations.

The government study had also employed Giuseppe Micali, who represented hunting organisations in Italy, as monitor.

Following Ricci's departure from the study in August 2007, Christos Thomaidis, a Greek game biologist, was entrusted with the study in November 2007.

Despite the fact that the methodology and supervisors of the study had changed several times during the study period 2007 to 2009, Thomaidis produced a 'report' which was released to the Ornis Committee in May 2011.

The report, BirdLife said, had a number of serious scientific flaws such as the change in methodologies, incomparable results, and lacked presenting raw data amongst others.

Thomadis had also gone as far as deriving conclusions on quail migration although he admitted that the quail data was not sampled systematically.

He drew conclusions based on hunter's bag counts which were never verified. Hunters were paid to carry out the study whilst being allowed to shoot birds as they 'counted' them, BirdLife claimed.

"We believe that Mepa is not interested in studying the importance of Malta for turtle dove and quail migration. Had this been the case, the employed methodology would have the backing of professional ornithological institutions, and would also consider studying the autumn migration of both species to analyse trends and difference in migration patterns," Mr Mangion said.

BirdLife Malta said it distanced itself from the proposed study and expressed concern that such rushed and flawed studies were only being commissioned to fulfill reporting requirements to the European Commission for spring hunting derogations, rather than into evaluating Malta's strategic importance for the migration of European birds.