A ring of poachers being questioned by the police are believed to be linked to a series of alleged hunting crimes in Egyptian national parks and nature reserves, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
More than 700 dead protected birds were confiscated by the authorities during a raid in Kirkop on Thursday.
Police sources involved in the investigation said one of the men in the group of seven is believed to be a principle organiser of nefarious poaching trips to Egypt in which protected species are often shot down and smuggled into the island.
Maltese poaching trips in Egyptian national parks have in recent years been singled out for having a devastating impact on protected species, as well as links to the illegal guns trade, and bribery of park officials.
Police sources said the Egyptian authorities had played a vital role in last week’s crackdown, after having flagged an incoming shipment of protected birds believed to have been killed during a trip to an area close to Egypt’s Gebel Elba National Park.
In recent years the Egyptian authorities have discovered a number of consignments of dead birds wrapped in plastic and even labelled in Maltese, sources said.
Egypt trips date back to the 1990s
However, while some sporadic arrests of Maltese nationals have taken place for illegal hunting in Egypt, particularly around Lake Nasser on the Egyptian-Sudanese border, investigators in Malta have scarcely been roped in.
Meanwhile, police sources said the “taxidermy factory” that was busted by officers from the Police’s wildlife investigations team, known as the Administrative Law Enforcement unit, was lined with freezers stuffed with hundreds of protected species believed to be the result of “years of hunting trips”. The trips are believed to date back as far as the 1990s.
Specialised equipment to preserve the birds, many of which were large and vulnerable species such as the egret and ibis, were also found on the site.
“There was a professional set-up in this place that was used to store and taxidermy hundreds of birds shot during hunting trips abroad and then sold. We managed to break a significant racket here,” one investigator said.
The investigation had spun off from another into a group of Maltese hunters who would shoot at protected species of duck from rubber dinghies off the Maltese coast.
Sources said investigations into those men had led them to the suspected organisers of the Egyptian poaching trips and eventually to the treasure trove of killed birds.
Meanwhile, the crackdown has also exposed a grey area in Maltese law when it comes to licensing requirements for taxidermists.
Conservationist Mark Sultana from Birdlife told The Sunday Times of Malta that taxidermy was practised by amateurs locally, who could charge a hefty price per bird.
“The issue of taxidermy is something that we once again intend on discussing with the government as it needs to be addressed clearly in the law. We can’t keep allowing this situation where this is happening on the black market,” Mr Sultana said.
A stuffed large bird could set a hunter back between €200 and €300, and so the haul of 700 birds could have an illegal street value of tens of thousands of euros.
One police source compared the value of the killed birds to that normally linked to a seizure of narcotics.
‘If it moves, kill it’
An Egyptian survey had once singled out Maltese poachers for having a destructive impact on their wildlife.
The illicit acquisition of firearms and the killing of protected species were linked with Maltese hunting trips to Egypt in a survey on the Gebel Elba National Park back in 2010.
The survey had cited park rangers from the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) and referred to Maltese poachers targeting numerous protected birds.
Access to the protected parks is controlled, and the survey had highlighted how Maltese poachers had most likely bribed their way in. Rangers had also lamented how poachers were exploiting the parks’ understaffing and lack of resources to get away with killing protected birds.
“The Maltese and other poachers get a thrill out of decimating the wildlife of Lake Nasser, if it moves, kill it, whether a pelican or crocodile,” the survey had said.
The comments from rangers were also supported by data on the number of birds confiscated by the authorities and sent to the Egyptian Natural History Museum.
At the time 193 of these protected birds had come from the Maltese Customs Department who had discovered them being smuggled into the country.
Maltese hunters had been found trying to smuggle in a variety of protected species, from large birds, birds of prey and even chicks.