An updated report outlining BirdLife’s recommendations to clamp down on illegal hunting and trapping in the Maltese islands is to be resubmitted to the Office of the Prime Minister on Monday, BirdLife Malta said today.
BirdLife said it submitted the original report more than 1.5 years ago but it has not yet received feedback from the OPM.
The report is based on the advice BirdLife received from wild life crime experts abroad, ex-military and ex-police officers and lawyers in Malta.
It explains the importance of the Maltese islands in terms of wild bird migration as over 170 species of wild birds from at least 48 countries - 36 in Europe and 12 in Africa - use Malta during migration, highlighting the importance of effective law enforcement in Malta on the conservation efforts in other countries.
In the law enforcement section, the report draws attention to the chronic lack of resources and equipment available to the Administrative Law Enforcement Unit and states that the district police were in no position to act as effectively as the ALE.
Official figures obtained from the police and highlighted in the report show that in two months in spring 2008 the ALE arraigned 161 individuals, against the 14 arraigned by district police.
BirdLife’s recommendations emphasise the importance of establishing a Wild Life Crimes Unit (as part of ALE) that would focus solely on crimes related to Malta’s wild life throughout the year.
The report suggests that this Unit is reinforced and supplemented by the other ALE officers and with members of the Armed Forces during the hunting season and peak migration periods.
BirdLife also recommends that an immediate tagging system is put in place for the stuffed birds in hunters’ possession as this would allow law enforcement officers to check that birds are in fact those that were declared under the amnesty and not fresh specimens. Around 500,000 birds were declared to MEPA during the amnesties but were never checked.
BirdLife said hat minimum fines for repeat offenders were insufficient to act as a deterrent and should therefore start from the maximum fine for first time offenders.
The report states that opening a spring hunting season creates a blanket season for poachers targeting protected species and puts an additional pressure on the ALE as with current lack of resources the police force can hardly cope with illegal hunting, let alone strictly supervising a derogation.
BirdLife said it was currently running an international petition asking the Prime Minister to ensure that all hunting legislation is fully enforced, and never to allow spring shooting or trapping of turtle dove and quail again.
The petition can be signed at www.birdlifemalta.org