Volunteers of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) found 41 illegal trapping sites in the past three weeks, all freshly cleared and equipped with large clap nets.
In a statement today, the Munich-based organisation said that in order to ensure that the persons using these nets could be prosecuted it deployed surveillance teams who monitored the sites and 13 bird trappers were caught red-handed by the police or were later identified on the basis of photos and videos taken by the birdwatchers.
Bird trapping paraphernalia worth several thousand euros as well as about 30 live Linnets and Greenfinches were confiscated by the authorities.
CABS said that the priority area was Gozo, where 10 prosecutions are expected to be made.
“We concentrated on Gozo because the lack of ALE presence there has lead to a significant increase of illegal bird trapping”, said CABS Wildlife Crime Officer Fiona Burrows.
Three other songbird trappers were apprehended on Malta One of them was trapping finches inside the hunting reserve in Mizieb. The other poachers were filmed below the Dingli cliffs and at Migra l-Ferha.
On March 18 a CABS team also found a large vertical mistnet stretched over a small artificial pond opposite to the ferry terminal in Mgarr (Gozo). After the volunteers managed to film a person at the site the police who dismantled the trap and will press charges against the owner.
The trapping site was equipped with plastic duck decoys.
Other active trapping sites on Gozo were found in the areas of San Lawrence, Sannat, Ta´ Cenc, Xaghra and Xlendi. All of them were targeting finches with either live decoys or electronic bird callers.
The eNGO said that it has provided the police with the locations of the 28 additional trapping sites where nets were spotted.
CABS Press Officer Axel Hirschfeld added that the police always responded to their reports and in most of the cases the officers arrived within 40 minutes. He added that in some cases the authorities obviously refrained from conducting further inspections of cages and aviaries at the residences of the trappers.
“It is quite safe to assume that these poachers have more illegal birds in their possession than those found at the trapping site on the day of our report. Immediate inspections of all aviaries of those caught poaching red-handed should become a standard procedure”, Mr Hirschfeld said.