Kevin Gatt took his racing pigeons to Mellieħa on Saturday to start training them but two of the birds never made it back home and five returned with pellets lodged in their wings.

Be responsible and file a report if you see anyone shoot at pigeons

“These are racing pigeons. They are not to be hunted. Let us enjoy our hobby,” an irate Mr Gatt told The Times.

On Saturday, he release his pigeons, 46 in all, to L-Aħrax in Mellieħa in preparation for the pigeon races taking place within three weeks.

After he released the birds he drove to Ħamrun, where the pigeons were trained to return, and waited. Two never made it.

He immediately knew what had happened when another five returned with bleeding wings.

They had been shot at and pellets were still embedded in their little bodies, he recounted.

As a pigeon racer he invests a lot of time and money in his hobby. The dead birds were two years old and fully trained to compete. Buying racing pigeons from abroad for breeding could cost up to €400 each.

This is not the first time that one of his pigeons has been shot. It first happened a few years ago when one returned home injured.

A year later he tried racing the same bird, which he thought had healed, but it did not come home as its wings were too weak. Angry at what happened, Mr Gatt postedphotos of his shot pigeons on the Malta Federation of Racing Pigeon Clubs’ Facebook page.

“We are not against hunting but do not shoot at racing pigeons. Be responsible and file a report if you see anyone shoot at pigeons,” Mr Gatt wrote on Facebook.

The loss of birds to hunters’ shots, an illegal practice, has been happening frequently around October in the past few years. It is a very important time of year for the pigeons as they are being trained for the racing season.

In 2010, The Times reported that of 103 racing pigeons sent out for a morning practice session, 11 went missing and another six returned with gunshot wounds.

Just last year, the Federation of Pigeon Racing Clubs complained that racing pigeons in training sessions from Malta and Gozo were returning injured after being shot or not returning at all.

It said it was receiving various complaints from members about the matter as such losses in training sessions were abnormal.

Lino Farrugia, from the Federation for Hunting and Conservation (FKNK), condemned the shooting of racing pigeons and agreed that shooting them was not hunting.

“Whoever did this is just casting more of a bad light on hunters,” he said.