Activists gathered on the steps of Castille on Monday morning to tell Robert Abela he has "blood on your hands" over a lack of action on illegal hunting. 

Protesters lay on the ground as a loudspeaker played gunshots to highlight the killing of protected birds during the autumn hunting season.

Organisers said they staged the event to urge the prime minister to take action.

“The attitude adopted by Robert Abela to continue appeasing the hunting lobby at all costs has fuelled the feeling within hunters that they are untouchable and can do what they want,” environmental NGO Birdlife said in a statement.

“This is the Prime Minister’s fault, and it is high time he took full responsibility for the matter.”

Demonstrators held up banners reading, “This blood is on your hands,” above an image of Abela next to a dead bird.  

During the protest, the group of activists held up pictures of healthy migratory birds to the sound of birdsong interrupted by recorded gunshots.  

At the sounds of the shots, the participants fell to the ground and changed the photos to show images of dead birds felled by hunting. 

In the last few weeks, the organisation has highlighted examples of protected birds being shot, including a GPS-tracked black kite that made its way through seven countries before disappearing as it flew over Malta. 

Activists holding up pictures of healthy migratory birds. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier.

The protestors changed photographs after falling to the ground. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier.

The environmental NGO claimed that in recent years, laws to protect birds had been “systematically weakened.”  

Laws regulating taxidermy had been amended to make them “unenforceable,” they said and said the practise was the main cause of illegal hunting.  

“Apart from making it easier for hunters to target protected birds, the government remains dormant on the main cause of the problem, which is taxidermy,” the group said. 

They accused hunters of illegally continuing to trade stuffed birds between themselves, a practise which had been facilitated by a lack of vetting of private collections, they said.  

Activists say Robert Abela is personally responsible for the deaths of protected birds. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Abela and Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri came under particular fire from the group, who described them as “bent backwards to appease the hunting lobby.” 

The Environmental Protection Unit (EPU) – a police unit tasked with fighting environmental crime including illegal hunting and trapping – had seen its resources reduced under their watch, Birdlife said and claimed Gozo was an area where the EPU cannot operate.  

The NGO also highlighted recently opened proceedings by the European Commission against Malta for its lack of action against hunting.  

In June, European environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius said the Commission had been left no choice but to open legal proceedings against Malta for its lack of action against hunting.  

“Unfortunately, Malta did not prohibit (hunting and trapping) and that left the Commission without a choice but to refer Malta to the European Court of Justice,” he said. 

Sinkevičius said Malta was not implementing the “very clear rules” of the Birds Directive, especially on spring hunting of turtle doves, which have seen their numbers plummet in recent decades.  

In August, Birdlife claimed a young greater flamingo had been shot in front of tourists in Xwejni in Gozo, an area the NGO’s CEO Mark Sultana described at the time as a “mecca of illegalities”.

Malta's hunting season opened on September 1.