Updated at 4.20pm with ministry statement

A committee is to be set up  with representatives of the hunters' lobby FKNK, the Administrative Law Enforcement branch of the police, the Wild Birds Regulation Unit and BirdLife, Parliamentary Secretary Clint Camilleri said on Tuesday after a meeting where he discussed the possibility of this ad hoc committee keeping an eye on the current spring hunting season - including enforcement issues.

The secretariat said that the commitee would meet frequently and would be in a position to coordinate information and report on what was happening.

It made no mention of any potential role for the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA) which just hours earlier had been pinpointed by BirdLife as the best placed to handle enforcement 

The NGO was reacting to the resignation of the head of the Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU) Sergei Golovkin, which was announced on Monday.

"It has been very clear that this unit failed in achieving some of its important goals, mainly related to enforcement, due to its lack of competence in this field, especially in ornithology. BirdLife Malta insists that it has been, and will remain, the government’s policy that determines how agencies, and hence the civil servants within, operate," it said, adding that there was still a role for the WBRU.

"BirdLife Malta strongly believes that while the WBRU can remain the agency that looks at derogations from the European Birds Directive and the relative administration and legislation, the enforcement remit should return back to ERA who has competent persons that can handle this matter more efficiently."

The news of Mr Golovkin's resignation was broken by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), and confirmed four hours later by the Environment Ministry.

CABS described the news as “the end of an era of incompetence and failure”.