Illegal hunting is still a significant problem on the Mediterranean portion of the European-African migratory flyway, results published today from spring migration and anti-poaching camps run by the Maltese and Italian BirdLife partners revealed.

BirdLife Malta’s spring watch camp in April recorded 2,699 shots during a two-week period, with 596 shots recorded on the April 23.

It said that while illegal hunting incidents declined by around 11 percent compared to the previous year, the problem was still widespread, particularly in the south of Malta and in areas where birds of prey concentrated in the late afternoon.

Birdlife Italy’s camp on the Reggio Calabria side of the Straits of Messina had three poachers denounced by the Italian wildlife crime unit, the Corpo Forestale. It also ran camps in the four Sicilian islands of Pantelleria, Marettimo, Panarea and Ustica to record raptor’s spring migration.

In a statement, Birdlife Malta referred to a recent comment by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi that a wild life crime unit within the police force was not necessary.

“Dr Gonzi is clearly trying to undermine the true scale of illegal hunting in Malta by dismissing our calls for a wild life crime unit, in spite of the fact that the situation in terms of bird conservation is disastrous in the Maltese islands.

“Malta continues to be the only country in Europe without a pair of breeding birds of prey, including the locally extinct Maltese (Peregrine) falcon, the last pair of which was shot at Ta’Cenc in 1982,” Andre Raine, BirdLife Malta conservation manager said.

The Italian and Maltese conservation camps also focused on the importance of raptor migration over the Mediterranean Sea. In Italy and the four Sicilian islands 17 species of raptor (birds of prey) were recorded during the camps, the majority of which were honey-buzzards.

In Malta, 81 migratory species, including 12 species of raptor, were recorded. Significant numbers of marsh and montagu’s harriers were counted, as well as several rare or globally threatened species, such as lesser kestrel, listed as vulnerable on the Global IUCN Red List, and pallid harrier, classified as endangered on the European IUCN Red List.

These results highlighted the importance of the Messina Straights and the Mediterranean islands for raptor migration, Birdlife said.