Over 7,000 protected birds confiscated in recent years as a result of illegal hunting are held in closed quarters at the Natural History Museum, leaving those who witnessed the spectacle for the first time last week shocked.

While the Mdina museum has some 1,000 bird species on display for regular visitors, a behind-the-scenes tour of museums organised by Heritage Malta last weekend showed the stuffed birds on display were just the tip of the iceberg.

The Sunday Times of Malta joined the 12.30pm tour last Sunday, where stuffed protected and endangered species not usually on display could be viewed by the public.

Cabinets stretching across a sizeable room held row upon row of over 5,000 stuffed prized birds confiscated from private hunters’ collections.

There were also over 1,300 eggs and 122 nests. Visitors were also told that another room held over 2,000 species in 10 chest freezers although these were not on show.

7,000

– the number of birds mostly confiscated in recent years

Row upon row of protected species that few in the country ever got a chance to see were exposed: flamingos, ospreys, honey buzzards, marsh harriers, eagles and the lost icon of Malta, the peregrine falcon, also known as the Maltese Falcon.

“I’ve never seen these species in my life and I had to see it here, stuffed, for the first time. It’s shocking. It gives you an idea of what they would look like in nature, except here they don’t move. It’s sad,” a father of two attending the tour with his family told The Sunday Times of Malta.

The peregrine falcon at the museum was shot in Gozo in 1973.

A behind-the-scenes tour of the Natural History Museum in Mdina revealed a collection of more than 7,000 protected and endangered bird species targeted by hunters that are hidden from public view. Photos: Matthew Mirabelli

The collection is unique among natural history museums because most are recent specimens brought in by the police, either confiscated from homes or at customs as hunters return from trips abroad. The latest addition to the collection was only two weeks ago – it was a shell duck shot at Marsascala, according to the museum’s senior curator John Borg. The museum has over 200 honey buzzards alone.

Up to 2006, the museum only had some 1,600 species so the bulk of the collection was acquired in the following years. Until 2004, confiscated birds were sent to the abattoir.

In the past eight years, the number of birds held at the museum has spiralled to over 7,000 specimens. More than 70 per cent of the collection is confiscated material and the majority of birds are shot in Malta, Dr Borg told visitors.

In addition, there are at least another 600 still held in quarantine pending court cases. An ongoing case relates to a collection of more than 300 birds held by one hunter.

The birds are now used for research, and help the police prosecute hunters. When the last hunter was caught with a flamingo, the police went to the museum to check whether feathers found in the car matched the species.

“Sometimes a feather can close a case,” Dr Borg told participants.

The museum’s collection goes beyond birds and represents the history of the country’s geology, plant and animal life.

These include more than 10,000 rock and mineral samples, 200 mammals and 200 fish species, as well as thousands of local and exotic shells and insects and an impressive fossil collection.