The head of the LIFE Unit of the European Commission has written to the Federation for Hunting and Conservation, Malta, urging it to remove a video produced by the FKNK council and posted on its YouTube channel, attacking the EU LIFE Yelkouan Shearwater project.

BirdLife in a statement said the FKNK had claimed, without providing any evidence, that the LIFE project was a "sham" and that the data obtained by the project partnership was invented. Images and photographs were lifted from the LIFE project website.

The letter was sent on July 11 but the video has not been removed.

The EU LIFE Yelkouan Shearwater project is a partnership of four governmental bodies in Malta and three conservation NGOs, including BirdLife Malta, the beneficiary of the project. The project is 50% sponsored by the EU Life Unit with additional support from MEPA and HSBC.

In a press conference held early this week, the Project Partnership presented recent data obtained through the electronic tagging of these seabirds from the Rdum tal-Madonna colony and showed that two chicks that fledged this year have travelled as far as Greece, Crete and beyond to the Eastern Mediterranean. This is the first time in the world that GPS data loggers have been fitted to this species and the first time that satellite tags have been fitted to their chicks. This data is therefore important at an international level.

LIFE Project Manager Helen Raine said: "The success of the EU LIFE project has raised the profile of the important work that all the project partners are doing at an international level. We hope that the FKNK are able to recognise the value of this conservation work and desist with this smear campaign, which unfortunately is only serving to tarnish Malta's reputation on an international level. We also hope that the government takes the necessary action to ensure the success of this and similar conservation projects in Malta."

More information on the project can be obtained from www.lifeshearwaterproject.org.mt <http://www.lifeshearwaterproject.org.mt/>

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