Participants of the government´s dubious “finch trapping research project” are poaching thousands of wild birds with impunity while the regulatory authority WBRU (Wild Birds Regulation Unit) is paralysed, the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) said on Tuesday.
“Most officers still do not have any maps, tablets, nothing which would enable them to distinguish between legal and illegal sites”, CABS Wildlife Crime Officer Fiona Burrows said, adding that the trapping season was opened on October 20 without publication of the GPS-data of the registered sites three days before the season, which is obligatory according to the new framework legislation.
To make matters worse, the ‘enforcement hotline’ from WBRU – like the whole concept of the so-called study - seems to exist only on paper, the NGO added.
“We tried to reach them at least 12 times at various times of the day and from different numbers, but nobody replied”, CABS-Press Officer Axel Hirschfeld stated.
He said that since last Friday, CABS had identified more than 110 active finch trapping sites which are not listed in the GPS data of permitted sites published by the WBRU on October 20.
However, in recent days, inspections with the police revealed that half of all bird trappers were being granted a “special permit” from WBRU despite their trapping sites not being listed in the public database.
“We understand that a huge number of sites are either missing or their locations have been incorrectly plotted by up to 70 metres”, Burrows said.
CABS said that despite these difficult conditions its members and officers from the Environment Protection Unit (EPU) of the police were able to catch several bird poachers over the weekend. Among them were two participants of the government´s study who were caught trapping with more than the permitted number of clap-nets in Dingli.
Police remove a trapping site in Gozo after being alerted by CABS.The police dismantled the traps, confiscated all nets and more than 50 live finches. Both poachers were identified and will be investigated for trapping infringements.
Three large clap nets were also found inside the Mizieb woodland. EPU were called and removed the illegal traps bt the poacher managed to escape.
On Monday, a CABS team in Gozo led the police to four trapping sites in Marsalforn and Xewkija which turned out to be without any permit and were therefore also dismantled.
CABS said that illegal trapping was already rampant in the weeks before the official opening of the season, with a total of 27 illegal sites being shut down and more than 90 birds confiscated following CABS´ reports alone.
One of them resulted in the arrest of a man who had set up his clap-net on a narrow green strip in Valletta - just 250 metres from police headquarters. A pair of large clap-nets and 12 live decoy birds, including siskins, linnets and hawfinches were confiscated and later released.
CABS also published a video documenting lack of EPU and resources in Gozo where a young, masked man was illegally setting up a clap-net to catch finches. Police were called to the scene, yet the suspect still had ample time to collect six live decoys and flee in plain view of the police. The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msv_spxvwQs