Poachers and trappers take advantage of Spring hunting season

Anti-poaching organisation CABS has reported that in its first three days of its spring hunting monitor camp 'Operation Skyfall', over 330 contraventions of the hunting curfew had been recorded, and five illegal trapping sites closed down.

Acting on information provided by teams from the Campaign Against Bird Slaughter, five live protected birds, including a strictly protected Nightjar and several waders, six shot Marsh Harriers, a dead Cuckoo as well as two illegally operated electronic Quail decoy devices were seized by the police.

As early as Saturday morning CABS volunteers located two active clap nets between Xaghra and Ramla l-Hamra in Gozo, which were immediately reported to the local police for confiscation. At about the same time a CABS team in Imtahleb found a 10-metre long vertically strung trapping net in which a bird was found struggling to set itself free. The police were also called to this case but took 45 minutes to arrive at the scene, CABS said.

"The offenders used this delay to remove the mist net so that confiscation was not possible. Another trapper with an active mist net in the valley (Wied ir-Rum) below Ta´ Baldu was not so fortunate. The police called by CABS on Saturday afternoon arrived in less than 20 minutes, seized the net, and initiated proceedings against person or persons unknown," CABS said.

A CABS team patrolling on foot in the valley between Mtarfa and the Dwejra Lines on Saturday afternoon found corpses of six Marsh Harriers in a state of decomposition apparently dead for a few weeks, and a freshly shot Cuckoo found lying in a newly mown field.

"We suspect that the birds were shot in March and simply left lying in the field", CABS spokesperson Axel Hirschfeld said. "This new example of a massacre of birds of prey on Malta only came to light when the clover was harvested."

All corpses were recovered and taken away by the ALE. The police have begun proceedings against person or persons unknown.

In the night from Saturday to Sunday two Bird Guard patrols were deployed in the Bingemma and Bahrija areas to collect evidence of the illegal operation of electronic decoy devices for Quail. Between 2am and 4am, a total of 16 of these banned devices were located.

The local police from Mosta, alerted by the CABS patrols, despatched a mobile squad to the scene. The officers began to dismantle the devices at about 3:30am.

Close to one of the devices the volunteers discovered a 20-metre long mist net and a ground net of over 40 metres for the trapping of Quail. The net was surrounded by 6 cages with live Quail decoys. A few metres distant from the net, in a small garden, an aviary was discovered with several strictly protected bird species and some 20 unringed Turtle Doves, Song Thrushes and other huntable species.

ALE officers and MEPA officials dismantled the nets and freed a Robin, a Dunlin, two Little Stints and a Nightjar - an acutely endangered species throughout Europe from their imprisonment.

Five dogs that found chained up and severely under-nourished were handed to the Animal Welfare Department.

20 volunteer CABS Bird Guards are currently active on Malta and Gozo in order to record offences against Maltese hunting law and the European bird protection guidelines.