BirdLife Partners from 38 European countries have gathered information about the illegal killing and trapping of birds that occur in their countries.

The revealing results were presented at the European Conference on Illegal Killing of Birds in Larnaka, Cyprus hosted by the Council of Europe last July.

Strangely BirdLife Malta, a BirdLife Partner, despite participating through Paul Debono as one of the host speakers, failed to present a report on illegalities in Malta as was to be expected considering several references to Malta being the black spot in Europe where illegal killing and trapping of birds is concerned.

Contrary to popular belief, thanks to incessant bad publicity, the conclusion derived from this conference www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/european-wildlife928.html establishes that “legal killing and trapping of birds is not restricted to the Mediterranean countries, contrary to what many people believed. Disgraceful as it is, the illegal killing of birds is a widespread practice that very few countries have managed to stop”.

One wonders, considering the few incidents BirdLife Malta and their partners CABS (Committee Against Bird Slaughter) record on an island the size of a postage stamp whether the failure to produce a report on Maltese illegalities was intentional. After evaluating all the reports presented by the BirdLife Partners (www.birdlife.org/community/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Report_IKB_FINAL.pdf), what BirdLife Malta and CABS record and infallibly term as the “tip of the iceberg” could indeed be all there is to witness and certainly this would not live up to their claims of rampant abuse.

Indeed, any illegality is one too many and anything that could prevent or lead to perpetrators being apprehended is to be commended. But in order to prove one’s point that illegalities do occur, is branding Malta as an international shame necessary? Unfortunately, if one had to research hunting illegalities on the internet, the name of Malta infallibly appears as being a worldwide disgrace. There is no doubt that such branding is the fine work of who, for years, unlike the wildlife criminal, has been left unhindered and uncontested to report and publish whatever it wishes with little regard to the damage to Malta’s reputation.

Hopefully, one day the government will realise where the true harm lies and will treat whoever harms Malta’s image with equal verve.