A protected Peregrine Falcon which was shot down over Gozo on Monday has been recovered by Birdlife Malta and is being nursed by vets.
The NGO said the rather rare Mediterranean subspecies of Peregrine Falcon (also known as the Maltese Falcon) was shot and injured at Għarb. It was found by a family on holiday who called BirdLife to rescue the bird.
The Peregrine Falcon, once a common breeding species along Malta's coastal cliffs, became rare in the 1980s as a result of indiscriminate hunting.
It has since made a slow recovery, with a few breeding birds establishing nesting pairs in some remote areas of Malta's coastline, Birdlife said.
This particular bird was unfortunate to fall victim to a hunter who was supposedly out hunting rabbits at this time of the year.
"In 2018 the Wild Birds Regulation Unit (WBRU), which ironically now falls under the Gozo Ministry, changed the laws of rabbit hunting purposely to allow hunters to roam everywhere across Malta and Gozo. Prior to this change in legislation, rabbit hunting was only allowed on private land with the owner’s permission but now hunters can roam with a loaded shotgun wherever they want. Hunters are using this smokescreen to go out hunting for birds during their breeding season and during the early migration," Birdlife said.
"Since the opening of the “rabbit hunting season” on June 1 we have received nine illegally shot protected birds raising the total of illegal hunting casualties this year to 113. This means that despite the fact that we’re still in August, we are already on the same levels of 2018 which was a record year, with 114 known illegally shot protected birds."
Birdlife Malta CEO Mark Sultana said: “We need the people of Malta and Gozo to show this government that they care about nature and birds and want our natural heritage to be protected and not abused with the blessing of governments who were always spineless towards those that break nature laws and bend over backwards to appease only the hunting lobby as if the rest of society does not exist.”