Spring hunting derogation ‘not limited, not controlled, not legal’ – BirdLife

A volunteer participating in BirdLife Malta's Spring Watch camp likened the scenes she witnessed on Thursday morning to a warzone.

Marianne Leenders, who has been coming to Malta for Spring Watch and Raptor Camps since 2009, said: "It was like a warzone. There were hunters everywhere and the shots were coming so fast from every direction it was like we were surrounded by machine gun fire all morning. We saw many Turtle Doves flying and many being shot down. With so many hunters it is difficult to imagine how any could have survived."

BirdLife Malta Conservation Manager, Nicholas Barbara, said that volunteers monitoring migration as part of BirdLife Malta's Spring Watch camp witnessed a "big push" of Turtle Doves migrating on Thursday morning.

"Our teams in the countryside recorded in excess of 9000 shots in the space of just a few hours in the morning at 8 different locations around Malta," Barbara said.

In a statement issued today, BirdLife Malta today questioned the ability of the government and enforcement authorities to properly control and limit the spring hunting season in accordance with its derogation of the EU Birds Directive that allows spring hunting of turtles dove and quail.

BirdLife pointed out that it has witnessed widespread illegal hunting in the first week of the season and the number of hunters and amount of shooting are not compatible with a strictly enforced spring hunting season.

 BirdLife raised doubts that the number of SMS reports sent to MEPA will accurately reflect the number of Turtle Doves shot, saying that evidence from previous seasons suggests that this will not be the case.

Barbara added: "Under-reporting of kills has been a long-running issue. There is no way that the few police officers our teams have seen patrolling in the last week can monitor the number of hunters there are in the countryside as they are required to do by law, let alone check the amounts of birds that are being killed by each hunter."

The NGO also expressed its concerns over whether police were correctly enforcing daily bag limits and seasonal quotas in accordance with the derogation conditions.

On Thursday morning a hunter was filmed shooting and collecting two Turtle Doves and then continuing to hunt, shooting at, but missing, at least two Quail.

Police attending the scene spoke to the man, who admitted that he had killed two Turtle Doves and then continued hunting Quail, misinterpreting the law, limiting the daily bag of each hunter to two birds.

In a separate incident reported in the media yesterday, after Thursday's influx of Turtle Dove, police were reported to have managed to apprehend just one hunter on Gozo exceeding his bag limit.

BirdLife Malta's Executive Director, Steve Micklewright, said: "It is impossible to overstate the difficulty in enforcing these quotas. With the recent peak of Turtle Dove migration, shots fired in thousands all over the island, and incidents such as these, it is hard to believe that each hunter has kept to his two-bag limit, and that any strict enforcement of bag limits is even possible."

In the meantime, BirdLife continued to record various other illegal hunting incidents, including incidents of hunting on Sunday as well as after the 3pm curfew.

On Thursday afternoon, Spring Watch participants at the Għadira Nature Reserve witnessed masked men hunting illegally inside the Foresta 2000 Bird Sanctuary, taking advantage of the 1pm ALE shift handover during which time hardly any police are present in the countryside.

The NGO said this was not the first time that such incidents have been reported, but this week Spring Watch volunteers filmed and photographed events as they unfolded and have passed on video evidence identifying the individuals to the ALE.

"We understand the police are aware of the identity of the culprits and that investigations are ongoing," Barbara said.

In the latest incident, which took place on Saturday morning, BirdLife staff and volunteers filmed two men illegally trapping Turtle Doves in Wardija.

Police attended the scene and apprehended two suspects. Nets, trapping equipment and at least 10 live Turtle Doves, which were being used as decoys, were confiscated from five active trapping sites in the area.

Incidents recorded by Spring Watch volunteers during the 2013 spring hunting derogation, could be viewed on BirdLife Malta's tumblr page.