CABS report shooting down of several Honey Buzzards

The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) has reported thousands of Honey Buzzards, Marsh and Montagu’s Harriers as well as a few Black Kites that spent last night roosting on Malta and Gozo.

A remarkable mass fly-in of Honey Buzzards, harriers and other birds of prey took place over the past two days due to prevailing Mistral-wind in combination with unsettled weather conditions.

The night roosts chosen included the Mizieb woodland, the area around Little Armier, the vicinity of Buskett and Mgarr as well as the Delimara Peninsula.

“The majority of the birds continued their migration this morning unscathed,” said CABS spokesperson Axel Hirschfeld. “But despite a massive police presence, a number of poachers used the opportunity to shoot down several birds of prey yesterday evening and this morning”.

The first casualty was recorded at about 17:45 hours yesterday evening in the eastern part of the Mizieb woodland, where a poacher fired two shots at a group of Honey Buzzards as they came in to land. One bird was mortally injured. The police, alerted by a CABS patrol, searched the area and checked suspicious vehicles, unfortunately without success.

CABS was also informed by police sources that a male Marsh Harrier with shotgun injuries had been recovered at 4pm in the Gnejna Bay area by the ALE and taken to a veterinary surgeon.

At 7:16pm a CABS team, deployed together with police officers in Delimara, witnessed a Honey Buzzard coming under fire from several locations. It finally fell to earth dead. In the time-frame 3pm to 7:30pm hours a total of 46 shots were registered at Delimara.

Shortly before 8pm hours the same team recorded five shots in the vicinity of Żejtun. A short time previously several Montagu’s Harriers had been sighted in the area.  

The largest night roost, with some 200 birds of prey, was the Mizieb woodland. Although at least 50 persons with shotguns were out and about there this morning the three CABS teams deployed in the area recorded no killing of protected species.

“It was fantastic to see these rare birds fly off unharmed. In view of the massacres of birds of prey in this very area over the past few years this represents real progress,” said Alexander Heyd, CABS's secretary-general.

"The other - and darker - side of the coin was revealed near Little Armier area, where at least 100 Honey Buzzards had roosted in the nearby picnic grounds," CABS said.

The on-site CABS team were this morning witness to the shooting down of the first Honey Buzzard at 5:32am. A bird leaving some time later around 09:50 hours was killed near the Red Tower. In the period 08:00 to 09:00 hours three further Honey Buzzards were shot at while leaving the roost but were not mortally hit. The ALE was informed of the situation and they dispatched several patrols to the eastern Marfa Ridge. The result of their operation is not yet known.

CABS also report the arrest of a poacher by police near Żejtun after he had shot down a Honey Buzzard.

CABS has at present four teams in the field on Malta. They have the task of monitoring illegal hunting in cooperation with the police and BirdLife Malta. Since the start of their operations last weekend they have recorded 158 contraventions of hunting and bird protection legislation.

These include 119 shots outside permitted hunting times, the illegal use of electronic decoys on 16 occasions, 12 occurrences of the shooting at or shooting down of protected bird species (the figures include yesterday’s and today’s events), 7 instances of the use of firearms with more than 3 consecutive shots, 3 cases of hunters not wearing the essential armbands as well as one case of illegal trapping of protected song birds. The latter offender was filmed. In addition a total of 9 birds of prey with obvious shotgun injuries were observed.