Picture yourself on your annual winter getaway to an exotic escape in the southern hemisphere. While exploring your tranquil surroundings you venture into a restaurant, lured by the tempting aromas. You sit down to enjoy your meal when suddenly you are surrounded, handcuffed and thrown into a cell for no reason at all.
You have no chance of escape and for the rest of your life you are behind bars. You may have all the food and nourishment you need but you don’t even have enough space to stretch out. Most would think this to be cruel, unfair and inhumane – but this is the trauma wild finches or song birds experience on our idyllic shores every autumn.
You may think this must surely be illegal but sadly finch trapping has been legal again since 2014, under the authority of none other than the Parliamentary Secretariat in charge of Animal Welfare. That’s right, animal welfare – best defined as being the welfare of any living animal except wild birds. The romantic semantic given to this practice in more recent years is the ‘socio-cultural tradition of live-finch capturing’, as the Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU) within the Environment Ministry justifies it to the European Commission.
The reality behind this practice branded as ‘tradition’ is far from the vintage notion of a village pensioner who has no reason to live other than to incarcerate birds as a hobby. Finches, like many other birds we are lucky enough to have visit our islands, migrate south from Europe to Africa every autumn, with the Maltese islands acting as a stepping stone.
We know they originate from 18 countries, where they are protected and where the use of nets to catch them is banned. This is the crux of the issue. EU rules (the Birds Directive) do not allow these birds to be taken from the wild or killed and consider the use of nets as an unsustainable method of killing birds. When Malta joined the EU in 2004, this matter had to be evened out, with Malta agreeing to slowly phase out the practice by 2009.
And so it did… only that it didn’t last that long. Political promises made behind closed doors to the trapping and hunting community in 2013 forced the Parliamentary Secretariat to create a unit of government employees plucked from civil service and hunting organisations to come up with the solution.
For them, a derogation was the answer: an attempt to justify bringing back this cruel activity by requesting an exemption from the European Commission – one that is normally requested for extreme circumstances such as killing birds that can be a cause of peril, pests or for justifiable scientific research. It is this key point that makes the term ‘justifiable’ stick out.
The European Commission has always been of the opinion that catching finches just for fun is not a justifiable reason. Neither does ‘tradition’ hold any water. If trappers have such an absolute need to possess these birds for traditional purposes, there is no reason to catch them from the wild. There are enough species and breeds in captivity to satisfy anyone’s passion.
This position was known long enough that the whole saga was reignited in 2014, with Birdlife Malta being at the forefront of lobbying the government not to reopen this cruel and damaging practice. For the birds and the risk of their welfare are only just part of what finch trapping really does.
The European Commission has always been of the opinion that catching finches just for fun is not a justifiable reason
Every autumn, the WBRU authorises over 8,000 trapping sites, irrespective of land ownership. It is estimated that an area just larger than the size of the whole of Valletta is stripped of vegetation and covered with nets to catch birds. A good proportion of such land is public land, blocked off with Reserved to Owner (RtO) signs. Whole bunkers and complexes have been re-adorned since the trapping season for finches reopened in 2014, while whole swathes of protected habitat in Natura 2000 sites have been cleared or sprayed with herbicide to make way for nets.
To catch wild finches, other live finches have to be used for their call as a lure. As a result, each season creates such a huge demand for caged birds to be used as decoys that every year thousands of wild finches caught in nearby Italy are smuggled into Malta to supply trappers. These unlucky finches are tucked and crammed into tiny spaces to escape Customs, with many dying in transit. This just fuels the vicious cycle; trapping more wild birds for the enjoyment of those who catch them. Sadly, many don’t make it past the first few days in captivity. The stress of the catch and the conditions they are kept in means they will never make it out alive from a life behind bars.
Since 2014, the European Commission has initiated infringement procedures against Malta for reopening finch trapping seasons for which the Commission contests that the so-called tradition of catching finches does not conform to EU law. The case ended up at the European Court of Justice and it was heard last February, with a verdict expected in the coming weeks.
Incidentally, this could be the turn of European Commissioner for Environment Karmenu Vella to bring Malta back in line with the rest of Europe, if the European Court rules it out in his favour.
An end to finch trapping would follow the progress Malta achieved so far on animal welfare – from the banning of animal circuses to improved pet protection laws. It would, however, also return a good chunk of Maltese countryside back to the public to be recovered from years of misuse, especially where priority habitats are concerned.
Timeline
2004 – Malta joins EU and agrees to phase out finch trapping by 2009.
2009 – Finch trapping made illegal while trapping for two huntable birds allowed (golden plover and song thrush); finch trapping persists illegally.
2011 – EU starts infringement procedure against Malta for wrong application of derogation to allow golden plover and song thrush trapping, in particular for lack of enforcement and sprawl of finch trapping in Natura 2000 sites.
2013 – Roderick Galdes communicates to media that he found a technical loophole in EU legislation to reopen finch trapping. The WBRU is set up with one of its main tasks being to apply a derogation for finch trapping.
2014 – Malta issues legislation allowing finch trapping, reopens licencing system allowing new trappers and sets out a registration system of trapping sites, allowing trappers to register up to four clap nets each. October 2014 sees the first finch trapping season after five years. The EU sends its first formal warning, asking Malta to justify season.
2015 – Unsatisfied with reasons given, EU issues second warning in May. Malta persists with opening a second finch trapping season in October. Following this, EU refers Malta to European Court of Justice.
2016 – Third finch trapping season opens, despite pending case at European Court of Justice.
2017 – In July, ECJ Attorney General opinion is published on case pointing to Malta being unjustified to open season. In October, Malta allows fourth finch trapping season.
2018 – ECJ verdict to be published determining future of finch trapping.
Nicholas Barbara is conservation manager at Birdlife Malta.
BirdLife Malta has just launched its #STOPTRAPPINGNOW campaign with the objective of explaining more about trapping to the public and raising awareness about the several impacts of finch trapping on the birds, their habitat and the Maltese environment in general. For more details, visit http://birdlifemalta. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ STOPTRAPPINGNOW.pdf. For all you need to know about trapping in Malta, the trapping seasons and what to do if you witness or know about any illegal trapping, go to http://birdlifemalta. org/information/trapping.