Malta Migration

Malta Migration Massacre

 

Most of you who read my wildlife blogs are interested in the world of nature. You enjoy walking in the woods, watching the birds and listening to their singing. But what if there were no birds? What if we could no longer enjoy the sight of swallows swooping low over the ponds in search of insects, watch the sickle-winged swift soar high in the sky overhead, or hear the definitive sound of spring – the cuckoo? We would lose our summer. Sometimes, we might not even be aware of the swallows twittering around the barns or gathering on the telephone wires; they are summer’s background sounds – but we would soon miss them if they weren’t around. Yet each year, the numbers of our migratory birds are decreasing, and although there are many factors to take into account, one major finger of suspicion points directly at Malta. Malta is an idyllic Mediterranean holiday isle, destination for thousands of British tourists each year. Malta is also a place where thousands of birds, many on their way to Britain to breed, are shot.  Birds affected include kestrels, ospreys, cuckoos, bee-eaters, swifts, marsh harriers, purple herons, swallows, golden orioles and pallid harriers. There are many others.

 

Chris Packham with a swift killed by hunters

This April, naturalist and television presenter Chris Packham, together with three colleagues, is working on an independent, self-funded project to raise public awareness of the plight of Malta’s migratory birds. With the support of Birdlife Malta, the team will produce a series of videos depicting their findings as they infiltrate the hunting grounds. Chris states, ‘It will not be pretty. The species killed include many UK favourites and rarities and the hunters are infamous for being confrontational and violent. I don’t care, this is not a holiday. It’s an attempt to bring this forgotten issue to a wider public attention and then to offer a couple of ways in which the viewers can actually do something to effect positive change.’

 

Little Bittern

The problem is that Malta has a controversial exemption from the EU Birds Directive – a ruling which aims to protect all European wild birds and the habitats of listed species – and this exemption allows hunters to shoot a limited number of turtle doves and quail during the spring migration. Malta is the only country in the EU that has a recreational spring hunting season, but the hunters are ignoring the restrictions and killing other birds that are meant to be protected. Sadly, even the ‘allowed’ turtle doves, whose soft call once resonated across our land, are now so rare that their numbers have dropped by 95% in the UK. Not all the Maltese people are hunters of course – the large majority wish to see migrating birds protected and they oppose spring hunting, yet successive Maltese governments have failed to bring the illegal killing of birds under control. So, each year in spring over 10,000 hunters cluster on this small island to ‘enjoy’ their sport.



This Montagu's Harrier was too badly injured to save

 

Montagu's Harrier

Amongst the birds that Chris Packham came across this week was a swift that had been illegally shot, no doubt winging its way back to Britain. Swifts can live for twenty years and during the course of their lives fly millions of miles from Africa to their breeding grounds in Britain and back again, unfortunately passing across Malta on their journey. He also watched a hunter with dogs and noticed that one of the dogs was carrying a little bittern in its mouth. When the hunter saw that he was being watched, he hurried off, leaving the bird behind. Little bitterns are exceedingly rare in Britain. The team found another rarity, a magnificent Montagu's harrier, which had been shot. This was another stunning individual that will never effortlessly circle our skies again. The Montagu's, a female, had her wing shattered at the joints, and sadly, had to be euthanised. This particularly harrowing episode of the video diaries perhaps puts into perspective more than anything else just why we must all try to get this horrendous and barbaric practice banned. In Britain, a Montagu's is hailed as a rare and spectacular sight, yet to the Maltese hunters, it's just another flying target.

 But why do the hunters kill the so-called protected birds? It could be because they regard them as trophies; sadly taxidermy is becoming popular once more, and the birds’ stuffed bodies can be sold for a lot of money to collectors. One hunter pointed out that younger men ignore the rules and take pot shots at anything that flies. It’s good target practice. The Maltese hunters are against Birdlife Malta – they believe they are interfering with Malta’s birds. Yet they are not – the birds are not exclusive to Malta, they belong to Africa and Europe, too. Many of these shot birds would have been making their way to breeding sites across Britain. Each spring Birdlife Malta seek out injured birds and take them to a vet in the hope that a few, at any rate, might be saved, but very few recover enough to be released.

 

Another problem is that the hunters are unfair. Recently, over the holidays, local people were camping on one of the few public spaces in Malta. The hunters insisted that the police moved them on so they could shoot uninterrupted.  Hunters have also wrecked bird reserves on the island by chopping down hundreds of trees and polluting lakes with oil. They have even broken into the reserves to shoot the birds sheltering there. Few of them have been caught.

 

So, how can you help? You will find the video diaries and many more details if you visit:

http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/    .

 A letter or email to your local MEP would bring the matter to their attention, and if we all do this, then just maybe the laws will be properly enforced in Malta.  You can find your MEP here: www.europarl.org.uk/en/your_meps/list-meps-by-region.html

 

You might like to donate to Birdlife Malta, to help them in their fight against the hunters:

www.indiegogo.com/projects/stop-spring-hunting-on-malta

As Chris Packham points out, the bird life in Malta is stunning and it could attract thousands of bird watchers to view the spectacle each year. But the vast majority of bird lovers won’t go while there is a possibility that the birds might be shot. Would you?

 

Pictures provided by and copyright of Chris Packham