Police knock on Labour MP’s door to demand he rings his 400 birds

With over 400 birds nesting and roosting on his Ta' Xbiex residence's roof, Labour MP Adrian Vassallo can be safely described as an avid aviculturist.

But his hobby threatens to land the MP in trouble: earlier this week a police inspector from the Administrative Law Enforcement and a superintendent accompanied two MEPA officers in a 'raid' on his avian kingdom, threatening him with charges related to bird ringing offences.

According to Vassallo, the MEPA officers inquired about the fact that his birds were not ringed, although the MP says he is unaware of any ringing obligations unless for trading purposes.

"I don't understand the purpose of the search: I can imagine it came from a report to the police from somebody who must have some axe to grind," Vassallo told MaltaToday.

"But the idea of ringing each individual bird is just madness in itself. Many of them are nesting in inaccessible corners that I cannot reach, and I cannot startle the nests. It is just physically impossible.

"According to the MEPA officers they must be ringed within five days of being born, but how can I know whenever any of these 400 birds have hatchlings or chicks?

"Additionally, ringing them at such an early stage would be risky for them since the bird's mother would either throw it out of the nest or try to remove the ring from the chick's leg straight away."

An ornithologist who spoke to MaltaToday also claimed the raid itself is a rare occasion, since bird ringing has not been regularly enforced in Malta.

"The ALE officer told me they had had a report that I was keeping illegally caught birds and trapping them from my roof, but the MEPA officers were satisfied that I was keeping them in good condition and that I had no trapping devices," Vassallo said.

While Vassallo said the MEPA officers told him the authority would be pressing charges over the ringing offences, a spokesperson for the authority would only limit himself to say that MEPA officers were called in on the police's search operation for technical advice.

As a Labour MP, the self-styled conservative Vassallo has often taken positions that contrasted with the party leadership, most notably on divorce legislation. The staunch Catholic had even publicly berated hotels for allowing the screening of pornography and digital TV providers that broadcasted inflammatory films.

Vassallo is such an avid bird lover that in his last parliamentary declaration of assets he described the usage of his property as a "residence for myself, my wife, my four children, nine cats, a turtle, and 400 birds."