A hunter shooting down a protected honey buzzard on the Gebel Ciantar plateau was filmed by volunteers from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter at 7.29am today.

The bird was one of a group of buzzards which had roosted in Buskett Gardens and was shot down seconds before it was about to reach the sea at Ghar Lapsi, CABS said.

It said that at least five hunters were seen hunting in the area where the bird fell down.

"Instead of helping to catch the poacher all of them either continued hunting or left the area before the police arrived 45 minutes after CABS alerted the headquarters.

"Officers of the Administrative Law Enforcement (ALE) searched the area but were not able to find either the shot bird or to identify the poacher," the organisation said.

“Apart from the high number of illegalities observed since the start of the season the police does not seem to have an effective approach for how to bring the situation under control”, CABS operations officer Axel Hirschfeld said.

“The main problem is the poor response time which provides the criminals with enough time to hide all evidence and sit at the breakfast table before the police even arrive at the crime scene.”

Today's incident, CABS said, followed the shooting of more than 20 protected birds last week. The last reported shooting of a protected bird was that of a grey heron last Thursday.

CABS repeated its’ call for the government to set up a professional wildlife crime unit that would be able to guarantee the safety of protected birds roosting on Malta.

“Until such a unit has been set up, hunting should be banned during the period of raptor migration,” CABS stated.

With its statement, CABS has endorsed Birdlife Malta and the United Nations Environmental Programme which both have already called on the Prime Minister to close the season as too many illegalities were observed.

It also stressed that the number of birds shot down unobserved was likely to be a multiple of the number of incidents actually observed or filmed.

CABS also said that its teams discovered more than 50 illegal bird callers which have been installed in the countryside by hunters to maximise their quarry.

“We have provided the police with a digital map which contains the locations of the machines and proposed that they should be removed immediately,” CABS staff member Fiona Burrows said.

The artificial lures imitated the courtship song of quails, ducks, redshank and protected dotterels.

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