Malta – 26. 10. 2021

Finch trapping 'research project' leads to poaching chaos.

Weak enforcement caused by “systematic failure and incompetence” within regulatory body Wild Bird Regulation Unit (WBRU).

Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS)

+++ PRESS RELEASE – 26 October 2021 +++

PR - Finch trapping 'research project' leads to poaching chaos – Weak enforcement caused by “systematic failure and incompetence” within regulatory body Wild Bird Regulation Unit (WBRU) - CABS

Valletta. Participants of the governments dubious “finch trapping research project” are poaching thousands of wild birds with impunity while the regulatory authority WBRU is paralysed by the blatant political backing, allowing this to happen – the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) said today. The bird protection NGO substantiates its allegations with the systematic incompetence it has observed within the WBRU when helping police officers to do their job in the field. “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 20th of October without publishing the GPS-data of the registered sites three days before the season, which is obligatory according to the new framework legislation released on the same day. “Police and public were unaware of rules until that point”, Burrows continued. To make matters worse, also the ‘enforcement hotline’ from WBRU – like the whole concept of the so-called study - seems to exist only on paper. “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 continued that since the beginning of the season last Friday, CABS have already identified more than 110 active finch trapping sites which are not listed in the GPS data of permitted sites published by the WBRU on 20th October.

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 70m”, Fiona Burrows states concluding that with wrong data, enforcement officers will be “incapacitated” and unable to validate targeted checks or focus on poachers who take advantage of the enforcement chaos. 

Despite these difficult conditions CABS and members of 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. 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. On Monday, a CABS team on Gozo lead the police to 4 trapping sites in Marsalforn and Xewkija which turned out to be without any permit and were therefore also dismantled. Photos published by CABS today show officers of the EPU and of the Gozo police on site handling protected birds and removing illegal nets.

CABS also reported 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 80 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 the middle of the government quarter of the capital Valletta - just 250 metres from the headquarters of the Maltese police! 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 on Gozo where a young, masked man has been 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  

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Contact for more information: CABS Press Officer Axel Hirschfeld, +49 179 4803805 or Email to CABS@komitee.de