Bird trappers have been asked to apply for another catch-and-release ‘study’ despite Brussels having warned Malta to stop the practice or face possible court action.
Trappers have started to receive application papers for the project, which would allow them to snag protected songbirds for research purposes.
The scheme was first introduced last year after the European Commission effectively banned a regular season.
Application papers for the study were sent to trappers without the matter first being discussed at the government’s consultative Ornis committee.
Government sources insisted it was not yet decided whether the study would actually be reintroduced: the application papers were only sent out to speed up the process if a season is opened next month, they said.
Others on the consultative committee, however, viewed this suggestion with scepticism.
The controversial practice of trapping protected finches using cages and nets was effectively banned by the European Court of Justice in 2018. It declared that, by allowing the live capture of seven species of protected wild finches, Malta was failing to fulfil its conservation obligations.
Last year, the government went ahead and opened the season anyway, claiming it was for a scientific study to ring birds and re-release them.
In March, Times of Malta reported that the government had written to the European Commission to inform it that it planned to continue allowing trapping for research purposes this year too.
Malta defends its decision to open a trapping season
But, three months later, the commission issued Malta with a final warning, in the form of a reasoned opinion, to stop the finch trapping studies, saying that they breached the Birds Directive.
Brussels gave Malta a month to “remedy the situation” or warned the case could be referred to the Luxembourg court.
It said that permitting trapping of finches for research purposes would mean not complying with the original decision of the court.
A government source said that, in the lengthy correspondence sent to Brussels earlier this year, Malta had defended its decision to open a trapping season despite the threat of possible infringement proceedings by the EU.
Malta told Brussels that, in its view, the court judgment did not constitute an outright ban on live capture of songbirds.
The European Court of Justice had declared that one of the reasons it was against allowing finch trapping to carry on was because there was no local data being gathered to prove where the birds being trapped were migrating from.
The lack of scientific data made it impossible for the European authorities to assess the impact Maltese trapping was having on specific songbird populations.
According to the technical correspondence sent by Malta, EU rules on derogations allow for research to be carried out on the seven finch species traditionally trapped on the island.
Conservationists, on the other hand, have long complained about lack of human resources to adequately police the trapping season.