A purple heron at Simar nature reserve has been left standing on one leg. The bird’s other leg had to be amputated this spring after it was so badly mangled by gunshot that the limb could not be saved.
Narrowly avoiding being added to a stuffed bird collection, the heron was snatched away from the grip of individuals by a member of the public and handed over to a veterinary surgeon.
Scientific proof on whether or not illegal hunting has decreased this year is hard to come by. Even if less prevalent than in preceding years, poaching of protected bird species is still very much with us, and we are not the only ones losing out.
Birds that choose these islands as their migration stopover in spring and autumn can have links with up to as many as 48 other countries. Birdlife Malta points out that biodiversity in these countries is also being impacted by illegal hunting in Malta.
Since new restrictions were added on a reinstated spring season, supporters of the local hunting lobby have been making much of how things have improved for birds, while recalling succinctly how in former years ‘they used to fall out of the sky like rocks’.
When vandals went on a coincidental rampage in 2007, destroying thousands of newly-planted saplings at a ministry afforestation project, it was the last straw. Citing zero-tolerance to illegalities, the government hit back with a precursor of the spring hunt ban, cutting the season short by 10 days as a retort to the massacre of migrating birds.
A controversial ‘derogation’ applied by the government for the first time this year may have served to put a feather in the cap of the poaching fraternity.
During the peak of this year’s spring migration, Birdlife volunteers found an average tally of one dead protected bird every day, not counting those that had been badly or fatally wounded.
Seventeen dead birds in almost as many days were received by Birdlife after being shot this spring. That is triple the number in previous years when the spring hunting season was still in thebalance.
The opening of the spring season this year – supposedly restricting hunters exclusively to turtle dove or quail – has proved not to be worthwhile for bird conservation on a wider scale. The loss of these protected birds on the one side can hardly be worth whatever gain there was to be had on the hunters’ side.
Writing in The Times last week, a hunter described the frustration ‘endured’ by hunters at having a cap put on the number of turtle dove or quail they are allowed to bag.
Hinting that self-regulation is unlikely to work, he queried who would send a text message to declare the fourth bird taken when it would mean closing the season as far as that particular hunter was concerned.
Some hunters were recently praised by their federation for good behaviour as an unprecedented number of migrating birds of prey flew off unharmed at Miżieb, as shown in a one-minute, 47-second video.
“These genuine hunters enjoyed the marvellous scenery notwithstanding also witnessing a very poor April hunting season with regard to turtle dove and quail migration after four years of being unjustly deprived of their traditional socio-cultural passion of spring hunting,” commented the Federazzjoni Kaċċaturi, Nassaba u Konservazzjonisti (FKNK).
We may wonder if it is this same socio-cultural passion that drives men to disturb the peace of the morning air for families living outside urban areas as they fire their shotguns just metres away from their homes? Even people living in the urban fringes are treated to a daily slaughter of sleep when it’s that crazy time of year again – migration.
Yet the Campaign Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) volunteers did acknowledge ‘real progress’ after some 200 birds of prey in Miżieb were able to fly off unharmed despite the presence of around 50 hunters detected by CABS.
The hunting federation, in a subsequent press release, glibly corrected that last figure, saying the true number of well-behaved hunters hidden away in the undergrowth at Miżieb was closer to 300.
The language used to describe individuals with an overt interest in winged species creates a fine dividing line.
Bird enthusiasts, whose primary weapons consist of little more than a camera, are referred to on hunting blogs as “the antis” in an attempt to tar them with a no-to-everything brush.
Hunters who wear the regulation armband, stop at three consecutive shots and stay within the limit of four turtle doves or quails, fiercely resent those who break the rules as being labelled anything but poachers. According to hunters, these outlaws are well outside their ranks.
Flying in the face of much vaunted restraint from the hunting federation’s end, poachers were reported shooting at listed birds over Delimara, Iklin, Miżieb and many other areas. Birdlife called for the spring hunting season to be cut short amid a volley of over 150 offences, but the plea fell on deaf ears.
Hunting marshals from within FKNK ranks, as originally planned for by the federation itself, are not very much in evidence. Instead the police had to take up the slack. It is unlikely that a hunter would spill the beans by speaking out against another hunter.
Even if more hunters are sticking to regulations this spring, most of them are apt to hold back from reporting those individuals still breaking the law. Who can trust a hunter, sorry… a poacher!
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