Several hundred Greater Flamingo birds migrated to Malta from their breeding colonies in Sicily in the past few days. 

With predictable disregard for the well-being of protected species, some Maltese hunters greeted these beautiful and vulnerable birds by blasting two of them out of the skies.

The reaction of Environment Minister José Herrera and Animal Rights Parliamentary Secretary Clint Camilleri was predictably relaxed, although Dr Herrera subsequently sought to make amends by announcing that an enforcement unit “will be launched within the Environment Ministry to give more backbone to current legislation protecting wildlife”. 

Neither he nor Mr Camilleri made any reference to the fact that the government’s Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU) – responsible for reporting illegal hunting crimes to the police – had “experienced a haemorrhage of enforcement officers… with almost none left to help the police monitor the countryside against hunting crimes”.

The WBRU was established six years ago but most of the enforcement officers in the unit have left for employment in other government departments in recent months without being replaced, leaving protected birds increasingly vulnerable to illegal hunting.

The fact that staff employed in the WBRU were allowed to transfer to other government entities without replacement speaks volumes about the priority the government attaches to ensure bird protection. It should surely be the rule that staff are not permitted to leave an important and sensitive unit like the WBRU on transfer unless a nominated replacement has first been found.

BirdLife’s head, Mark Sultana, has been advocating for a long time the need for a dedicated and fully manned wildlife regulatory unit to be established and tasked with maintaining a regular presence in the countryside to ensure hunting regulations are fully observed – but clearly to little effect.  

It appears that responsibility for cracking down on illegal hunting has consequently fallen entirely on the shoulders of the Administration Law Enforcement unit of the Malta Police Force since the WBRU (which is meant to submit reports of illegal hunting to the police) currently has been stripped of its manpower. 

The stark reality is that hunting irregularities are but one of a long list of responsibilities that fall on the ALE unit, which had originally been set up “to support the operations of district police officers in their battle against environmental crime”. This unit’s confiscation of over 700 smuggled dead protected birds last week is much to be commended, but still leaves the killing of the flamingos unresolved. A government spokesman confirmed the public’s worst fears about the tardy attitude towards enforcement when he stated – presumably anticipating Dr Herrera’s intention to launch an enforcement unit in his ministry – that “the possibility of reforming the enforcement framework and increasing resources [is] a matter of ongoing discussion”. 

Is it any wonder that the Maltese public, which has heard this excuse so many times when the enforcement of the law is found wanting, reacts so cynically? 

The government cannot be allowed to shelter behind such lame explanations.

The answer lies in ministers’ own hands – in this case the Environment Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for Animal Rights – to do what should have been done months ago. They need to muster the political will and train and recruit enforcement officers as soon as possible. Somehow, the lack of political wilingness to tackle hunters’ anarchy is becoming all too clear.