Teams deployed by the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) discovered six illegal trapping sites in an operation against the illegal trapping of protected Oystercatchers, sandpipers and other waterbirds in Malta and Gozo over the past few days.

The freshly prepared trapping sites were found in Zejtun, Mgarr, l´Ahrax, Mqabba and Xewkija, the Munich-based committee said.

“All sites were equipped with activated nets, plastic decoys and electronic bird callers to attract protected species”, CABS Wildlife Crime Officer Fiona Burrows said.

The police- after being alerted by CABS – conducted searches at all locations and seized several sets of clap nets and bird callers as well as a number of live protected birds including two Wood Sandpipers and a Green Sandpiper.

"These wader species are under the highest protection of Annex 1 of the EU Birds Directive, so according to Maltese Law the perpetrators- if found guilty- should be given an adequate fine and permanent revocation of the trapping license", Burrows added.

CABS said that most of the sites were found during aerial survey flights. Others were found during night patrols to detect illegal bird callers used by the trappers. Three of the sites were known as being used for illegal trapping before.

The situation is still serious but there is a clear drop in cases reported during the wader migration season- CABS

 

CABS stressed that its teams are not able to monitor the whole countryside. "Therefore the sites found represent only a fraction of the poaching."

It said the number of illegal trapping installations found during summer had slightly decreased in the past three years.

“The situation is still serious but there is a clear drop in cases reported during the wader migration season”, CABS president Heinz Schwarze stated. He said that this decrease was mainly due to a combination of the increased surveillance activity by CABS and the new stringent penalties for hunting and trapping offences.