More than 730 illegal hunting incidents were recorded by BirdLife Malta's spring watch teams during the spring hunting derogation period between April 12 and 30, BirdLife said today.
The figure, it said, was based on an initial analysis of the data gathered by its teams and did not include illegalities recorded by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter.
The illegalities recorded by BirdLife include hunters targeting protected species, exceeding the season's legal daily bag limit, hunting outside permitted hours, and hunting without wearing the yellow armbands, a legal requirement of the derogation.
The conservation organisation received 14 shot protected birds since the opening of the season. This compared with nine shot protected birds received during the same period in 2008 and 2009 together, when spring hunting was not permitted.
BirdLife said its teams also witnessed over 50 instances of hunters shooting at protected birds, and observed more than 40 protected birds in flight with injuries consistent with shotgun fire.
"These figures are just a small indicator of the killing of protected species during their spring migration over Malta. We do not know how many shot protected birds were received by the police, the veterinary services, the National Museum of Natural History and other organisations," BirdLife Malta conservation and policy officer, Nicholas Barbara said.
"What we do know is that when a spring hunting season is opened, thousands of protected birds migrating to their breeding grounds in Europe are in peril over Malta. The government's denial of the scale of illegal hunting is only encouraging the poachers who year after year continue with their carnage with almost no scrutiny," he claimed.
BirdLife said the 'strict supervision' condition for this year's derogation was clearly not met due to the very limited police presence compared to over 6,000 licensed hunters.
It said that while the government announced that 50 police officers would control the activities of thousands of hunters, BirdLife recorded on average only four police vehicles on patrol at any given time.
"Despite the best intentions of the under-resourced ALE Unit, a derogation permitting thousands of hunters has not been strictly supervised. This year's spring hunting derogation is yet another example of Malta deceiving the European Commission by exploiting the derogation loophole in the Birds Directive," BirdLife said.
It said that a detailed analysis of the data it gathered would be prepared and submitted to the European Commission in the coming weeks.