Use of electronic decoy callers in hunting
In Malta, the use of electronic decoy callers is widespread, although their use is prohibited by the EU Birds Directive. The use of devices with quail calls is particularly common, attracting the birds, most of whom migrate at night, to areas where hunters want to go shooting in the morning. The animals are then flushed with dogs and shot down.
While car radios operated with batteries were used in the past, MP3 players mostly used method nowadays. The devices have a timer that controls operation from around midnight until dawn. The callers are usually hidden in walls or camouflaged on the ground, often secured with concrete or metal boxes.
At our bird protection camps on Malta, we routinely locate between 50 and 80 of these devices every year. The loudly played quail call - a metallic "pick-per-wick" - can be heard echoing through the valleys. Nevertheless, very little enforcement action is taken to put an end to the illegal activity.
Only with repeated effort do we manage to get a police patrol to a joint night operation once or twice during the hunting season in order to remove the electronic callers we map out. Malta commits itself to particularly extensive controls, especially with regard to the derogations for quail hunting in spring.
However, it is very difficult to convict the perpetrators in the case of fixed installations. Several hunters typically go hunting in the vicinity of the decoys, so that it is hardly possible to identify a responsible person. That's why the only thing left for the officers - as and when they do make patrols - is to shut down and seize the equipment.
In addition to quails, waders are also lured before the shotguns with electronic devices. The poachers usually use mobile devices that they have placed nearby and switch on briefly via a remote control when a dotterel, sandpiper, green or redshank flies by. In such cases, we have succeeded several times in catching the perpetrators in the act.
Electronic devices are not only used for hunting, but also for trapping birds. Quail callers are often installed next to ground nets to catch live decoy birds, or near large clap nets to catch plovers. Finch trappers also often use MP3 players to attract linnets and other songbirds.