Government reopens finch trapping, after EU Court rules research derogation illegal

The Maltese government will derogate, yet again, from the EU’s ban on the trapping of birds just a month since the EU Court said its “research derogation” on trapping seven finch species, was illegal.

The controversial move follows a recommendation from the Ornis Committee, the consultative body that groups hunters and conservationists, and the government’s Wild Birds Regulation Unit, to have the season opened.

While the trapping of birds under the Birds Directive is illegal, Malta has twice been ordered by the EU Court that its derogations under Article 9 were not valid.

In a legal notice published on Sunday afternoon, the government published details of its derogation under Article 9 (1) (b). The "research period" was opened on Sunday, and will last until 20 December 2024.

READ ALSO: Undeterred by EU’s gavel, Maltese trappers hope bird data can save an illegal hobby

Reflecting previous arguments made by hunting lobby FKNK on the selected trapping and scientific ringing of birds by ornithologists, the legal notice states that finch trapping is required to establish where finches that migrate over Malta in autumn come from.

“Bird-ringers who participate in the national ringing scheme do not use live-decoys for the purpose of scientific ringing and control, which live-decoys are the key component of the clap-net system that ‘enables a more selective capturing of birds than mist-nets’,” the legal notice states.

The government maintains trappers with  clap-nets to trap finches, check for and record foreign ring recoveries, followed by the immediate release of all captured specimens back into the wild, as well as allowing EURING-accredited ringers to place scientific rings on those specimens, “is  absolutely  necessary  to  obtain  data  to  determine Malta’s  reference  population  of  the  relevant  species,  in accordance with  the  provisions  of  the  Birds  Directive  and  the  Framework Regulations.”

Ringing argument

If bird trappers can be allowed to catch these birds using clap-nets – which are illegal in the Birds Directive – and then ringed, they hope the scientific data from the ringed birds can provide an elusive “reference population” of the finches migrating over the Maltese islands.

The FKNK argues that its 4,000 trappers are ‘better’ at ringing birds than BirdLife’s few dozen volunteers, because they catch more finches anyway.

The claim stems from the sheer volume of birds caught by the otherwise illegal clap-nets: 16,000 trapped finches caught in 2016 and 2017, the only years for which official data is available.

On the contrary, BirdLife has ringed just 2,683 individual finches over its 44 years of activity, which it does using mist nets.

In 2020, the Maltese government derogated once again from the ban by introducing a ‘Citizen Science Finch Research Programme’ – a catch-and-release system which environmentalists derided as a cover for all sorts of recreational bird trapping..

BirdLife says this rationale defies a bona fide scientific argument to ring finches trapped on such an expansive scale, calling it a smokescreen for trappers.

“The point of bird-ringing is that it takes small samples of birds to allow us to learn about a number of facts, including the reference population when they are recaptured – it’s data which truly depends on when and where the bird is recaptured, and it might then  allow us to deduce where these birds’ breeding grounds are,” BirdLife CEO Mark Sultana had told MaltaToday previously.