[WATCH] BirdLife says illegal hunting casualties double those in 2019

BirdLife has reported a total of 63 illegal casualties from hunters and poachers this year, doubled the amount received in 2019 – 32 – by this time of the year.

Forty-one casualties alone were recovered by BirdLife and the police in the last 10 days, with a raging spring hunting season in Malta resulting in more illegalities.

This increasing trend indicates that 2020 will be a record year for illegally-shot protected birds, BirdLife said.

“Although we’re only at the end of April, this year’s total so far already stands at nearly two thirds of last year’s full total, which was 99,” spokesperson Nathaniel Attard said.

Even comparing the hunting casualties recovered during 2020’s spring hunting season to last year’s shows how illegal hunting this year is rampant: during the same period last year between the 10th and 30th April, BirdLife recovered just 12 known illegally shot protected birds. This year, with another three days to go before the end of the season, there are already 41 casualties.

“So much for home affairs minister’s Byron Camilleri’s reassurance in Parliament yesterday that the number of inspections and offences was the same as last year,” Attard said.

“Between the 18th of April and yesterday we recovered all sorts of shot species: Turtle-dove, Bee-eater, Yellow-legged Gull, Common Swift, Golden Oriole, Stone Curlew, Hoopoe, Common Kestrel, Grey Heron, Marsh Harrier, Honey-buzzard, Black Kite, and even a shot pigeon,” Attard said.

The highest number of shot birds recovered were Turtle-doves, for a total of 13 recovered in just 10 days, which Attard said proved the season had been nothing but a smokescreen for hunters to illegally shoot this vulnerable species.

“Two of the Turtle-doves together with the Black Kite were found at the FKNK-claimed land of Miżieb, a mecca for hunting illegalities which the government wants to hand over to the hunting lobby through a secret agreement revealed last week by the media. This will mean that the area will be closed to the general public for a period of at least nine out of 12 months, with exclusive access for hunters to hunt Quail, Turtle-dove and also rabbits.”