The golden plover population in Central Europe is on the brink of extinction, the Committee Against Bird Slaughter said today as it called on Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to ban the trapping and hunting of the breed.
In a statement this morning, CABS said the last remaining population was in Germany where four pairs bred in 2013. According to CABS the main threats to the golden plover in the EU were identified as destruction of the breeding habitats and hunting in staging and wintering areas such as France and Malta.
"Theoretically the whole Central European population can be destroyed with a couple of shots or by using a large clap net", CABS president Heinz Schwarze warned.
CABS asked Dr Muscat to contribute to the conservation of this threatened bird species and invited birdwatchers in Europe to write personally to Dr Muscat.
It said it printed and distributed more than 20,000 protest postcards in Germany. The picture on the rear of the card shows a freshly hatched golden plover combined with the logo "handle with care". A prepared online protest form is available on CABS webpage.
The European Golden Plover in the Birds Directive as a bird requiring special conservation measures to ensure its survival.
In Malta, the bird is a common migrant and winter visitor from October to March. Most of the birds occurring on Malta seem to belong to Scandinavian and Russian populations.
Despite an intensive ringing programme the migration routes of the German population are still totally unknown.
CABS urgently appealed to all hunters and trappers in the EU to deliberately denounce the killing and trapping of the species and to report all sightings of ringed birds to CABS@komitee.de .
Cabs said that on Tuesday a hunter who shot down a golden plover caused a stir among bird lovers in Malta and abroad when a video of him showed the bleeding bird thrashing around at his feet for minutes as he bragging about his hunting success on the phone.
SPECIES THAT MIGRATED OVER MALTA INCREASED - SECRETARIAT
In a reply the Parliamentary Secretariat for Animal Rights said the species is legally hunted in France, Portugal, Ireland, the UK and in Malta, in full accordance with the EC Birds Directive.
The legal hunting and taking of golden plovers in Malta constituted only a minor fraction of the total number of golden plovers hunted elsewhere in the EU, and was well below the one per cent of the natural mortality rate of the reference population, which the EU considered to be a “small numbers” threshold.
On average, Maltese hunters and trappers harvested almost 60 times fewer golden plovers than their counterparts in France and 30 times fewer than in Portugal.
The Secretariat also said that while the nominate species of golden plover which breeded in Ireland, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia suffered a moderate decline in some countries, the population of the sub-species, namely Pluvialis apricaria altifrons, which migrated over Malta, had actually increased.
This was according to the latest estimates provided by the European Bird Census Council (2013). Other scientific reference sources pointed to the population as being stable.
In deciding to permit a limited live-capturing derogation for golden plover in Malta in autumn, the government took into consideration a thorough scientific assessment of the conservation status of this species in Malta, in the EU, in Europe and beyond.
This assessment, which was also reported to the European Commission, concluded that the limited taking of golden plovers in Malta did not, in any way jeopardise or threaten the conservation status of the golden plover.
Moreover, the limited live-capturing season for golden plover occurred under strictly supervised conditions and monitoring regime, which included regulatory requirements subject to constant scrutiny by the law enforcement authorities.