Not one individual was prosecuted for killing turtle doves during the spring hunting derogation period, BirdLife Malta said on Thursday.

The eNGO was commenting following the Ornis Commitee meeting on Wednesday, held just a week before the opening of the spring hunting season, to which senior police officials were invited to discuss enforcement plans.

BirdLife Malta has been vociferously protesting against the opening of the hunting season for quail, insisting that this was a smokescreen which would allow the illegal killing of the red-listed turtle dove.

The eNGO said that the derogation allowing spring hunting between April 10 and 30 could only be justified to the European Union if it followed a strict number of criteria, including that of enforcement.

It said Maltese authorities were obliged to field a ratio of seven police officers per 1,000 hunters. With 7,647 applications for spring hunting licences, this makes this year’s requirement a total of 54 officers at any one time.

“While on paper these figures would be reported as a given, their effectiveness is very limited,” it said.

The last two weeks of April are associated with a peak migration of turtle dove.

BirdLife Malta said 2018 was a record year for illegally shot protected birds since 2013 with a total of 114 reported.

So far this year, it has already received 13 illegally shot protected birds during the closed season. Ten of these were recovered since the start of spring, seven of them confirmed shot just over the past week.