Updated at 6.20pm
Sergei Golovkin has stepped down as the head of the government’s Wild Birds Regulation Unit, the Ministry for the Environment confirmed - four hours after the news had been broken by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS).
CABS said that he had also resigned from his position on the Ornis Committee, according to the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS).
There was no love lost between CABS and Mr Golovkin, and they announced the resignation as “the end of an era of incompetence and failure”.
CABS said that Mr Golovkin had confirmed his resignation to them – but no reason was given.
“Since Golovkin was appointed head of WBRU, Malta's hunting and trapping enforcement system has become a disaster and requires a total reform,” CABS president Heinz Schwarze said in statement.
"Statistics demonstrate a total collapse of enforcement and regulation of criminal activity regarding birds," it said, noting that unit annual reports show that the number of protected birds confiscated in Malta declined from several thousands per year to only one bird last year.
“Between 2013 and 2017, the number of protected birds seized were 1,046, 2,087, 2,621, 228, and 1. From 2011 to 2014, MEPA's bird experts had identified and tagged around 8,000 stuffed birds in private collections to ensure that newly shot protected birds are not added to the collections or sold illegally. From 2015 to 2017 the number was zero.
After changes to the Conservation of Wild Birds law in 2016, the system of reporting hunting and trapping catches via carnet de chasse paper was replaced by phone reports.
“This ‘revamp’, proposed and spearheaded by Mr Golovkin, was a total failure, as blatantly shown by the recently published data from 2017,” CABS said.
Out of around 15,000 licencees only 2,167 hunters and trappers reported catching game during the 2017 seasons. This clearly shows the phone system is neither valid nor reliable due to the unrealistically low number of reported catch in 2017. This throws into question all bag statistics published by the government since the new system was introduced.”
The eNGO called upon the government to use Mr Golovkin's resignation as an opportunity to re-establish a fully operational and effective system led by experienced ornithologists and lawmakers.
Such a step should also include the return of responsibilities to the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) which – unlike WBRU – has experienced and unbiased ornithologists on its payroll, it said.
The government said in its statement that it was committed to "implementing effective measures with respect to conservation of wild birds through adequate funding of projects, holistic educational programmes and a rigorous enforcement structure".