Police caught an armed hunter inside Is-Simar Nature Reserve in Xemxija on Monday evening, Birdlife Malta said.

One of the reserve’s watchmen alerted the police that someone had broken into the wetland bird sanctuary and they immediately dispatched a unit to the location, the conservation group said.

Is-Simar is one of only two wetland nature reserves in Malta, which are managed by Birdlife, and is home to many birds and other wildlife found in few other places in the Maltese Islands.

Reserve manager Mark Gauci said it was a shame that incidents like this happened.

It meant “we need to have watchmen guarding a nature reserve where so much time and effort has gone into creating a place where people can experience nature and see birds and wildlife that would otherwise have no safe refuge in Malta”, he said.