A total of 15 known shot protected birds were retrieved during the 2017 spring hunting season which ran between March 26 and April 14.

Thirteen of these were recovered by BirdLife Malta alone, one was recovered by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), and the other by the police.

During the previous two spring hunting seasons, two shot birds were recovered by BirdLife Malta during 2015 alone and another two in 2016.

“By the Wild Birds Regulation Unit's (WBRU) own admission, this means that 10 per cent of all the birds known to have been shot during the 2017 spring hunting season (15 out of 145) were illegally targeted protected birds, based on the fact that hunters declared 130 Quails caught during the hunting season,” it said in a statement.

BirdLife added that hunting continued illegally after the end of the spring hunting season, in particular on turtle doves, despite the moratorium in place this year.

The protected birds shot this spring. Photo: Birdlife

"Up until today, a further five shot protected birds have been recovered, pushing the total of known illegally shot protected birds this spring up to 20. Sadly, only four of all these birds survived," it said.

Between April 16 and May 3, BLM's teams recorded close to 1,000 shots fired during the closed season were counted in this period by an average of four teams per day.

Hunters have also been recorded donning masks to hide their identity in various areas, specifically when targeting turtle doves during their peak migration, it said.

"In view that the Spring Watch only monitors a fraction of our countryside, it seems that there was no respect to the moratorium in force at all since turtle doves continued to be targeted as if the season was still open and hunting was permitted for this species too.”

BirdLife said that police presence was weak after the closure of the season too, with the Administrative Law Enforcement not being in the field at all in some days due to EU presidency commitments, leaving matters to district police.

It complained that only two known illegal hunting cases ended up in court.

It said that while some of the Gozitan police are hunters themselves, at the same time they are expected to patrol the hunting season.

“All this points to the need for the setting up of a professional and permanently responsive Wildlife Crime Unit which would be independent and totally dedicated to wildlife crime, without it being influenced politically or taken up by other major events in the country,” it concluded.