Watch: Owl found injured in Buskett, eNGO urges FKNK to be tough with hunters

BirdLife is urging the hunters' federation to call for increased hunting enforcement after one of FKNK's barn owls was found injured by a family in Buskett.

In a video on Facebook, BirdLife Malta said a barbaġann thar forms part of the Federazzjoni Kaccaturi Nassaba Konservazzjonisti's project aimed at reintroducing the barn owl species to the wild, was targeted by illegal hunting in recent days.

The owl was found injured on Tuesday, just a few metres from the site where the reintroduction project is underway in Buskett, an area meant to be a bird sanctuary where hunting is prohibited, BirdLife said.

The family that found the owl contacted BirdLife as it had a broken right wing. The NGO provided first aid and transferred the bird to the veterinarians contracted by the Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU).

BirdLife stressed on social media that "reintroduction projects cannot succeed if the serious problems of illegal hunting and taxidermy are not addressed meaningfully by the same authorities funding these initiatives".

Although two phases of this project were financed through the WBRU conservation fund and the project was even honoured by the FACE - European Federation for Hunting and Conservation, no information has ever been released on its outcomes or success, Birdlife added. 

"More than 10 years after the project was launched, the barn owl remains extinct in Malta.

"It is unacceptable that publicly funded projects like these continue to be undermined by repeated cases of illegal hunting. If there is genuine commitment to ensuring that such projects are not simply greenwashing exercises, the federation itself should be the first to advocate for stronger enforcement and appropriate penalties that act as an effective deterrent to similar cases."

Unfortunately, BirdLife added, the FKNK has in recent years focused more on lobbying for weakened legislation and reduced penalties, to the extent that the government is simultaneously failing to meet its international reporting obligations under frameworks such as the Rome Strategic Plan, which calls for a 50% reduction in illegal hunting by 2030. 

"Incidents like this, as well as those in recent weeks, including the one involving the Saker Falcon, indicate a worrying trend in which illegal hunting continues to persist."