A couple of days ago we posted a joint press-release from BirdLife Malta and the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), which reported that the bodies of 76 birds had been found ’stashed’ beneath rocks in the Mizieb ‘hunting reserve’.

That was bad enough but there is now an equally horrifying update on the CABS website:

Monday, 21.09.2009

Six teams were deployed on operations in the morning. In the evening three teams were withdrawn to assist in the search for bird corpses and remains in the FKNK hunting reserve in Mizieb.

The morning passed relatively quietly as there was little if any bird migration over the island. In the vicinity of Freeport in the south of Malta a CABS team was verbally abused by angry hunters, one of whom fired a shot in the air only 2 metres from an Italian team member.

From midday onwards the search for dead birds in the FKNK hunting reserve in Mizieb continued. The day before some 73 illegally shot birds had been found as reported earlier. Volunteers from CABS and BirdLife Malta, accompanied by police officers, found a further 119 bird corpses and remains within the course of a few hours. The total found to date (as at 4.pm) is now 193 (and rising) and includes:

• 49 unidentified birds
• 38 Marsh Harriers
• 35 Night Herons
• 33 Falcons (of various species but not exactly identifiable)
• 18 Honey Buzzards
• 4 Nightjars
• 4 homing pigeons
• 3 Herons
• 3 Common Kestrels
• 3 Hoopoes
• 1 Bee-eater
• 1 Nightingale
• 1 Golden Oriole

In the late afternoon the first Black Storks for this autumn reached the island - never to leave it! At about 5.00 pm conservationists reported that both birds had been shot down near the Buskett roost. The Maltese hunters are now clearly completely out of control.

These stupid, thuggish, brutal, stains on European civilisation are indeed out of control. There are few words to describe them (at least not that I’m going to use on 10,000 Birds) but they are clearly not worthy of living in the Europe many of us would like to see, and the very fact that these swaggering, hateful dullards are consuming air, water, and food resources, and are walking around free to enjoy their lives makes me boil.

Regardless of the situation and conservation attitudes in other countries, the killing of threatened birds in Malta is illegal. The Maltese Government must be taken to task for these atrocities by the European Parliament (who allowed these violent savages to be absorbed into Europe and therefore eligible for its financial benefits on condition they stopped the illegal hunting they were famous for). The non-hunting sections of Maltese society who claim to be as sickened as the rest of us by the dross they live alongside must finally speak out and make illegal hunting as culturally unacceptable on Malta as it is in most of Europe. The hunters must be punished because all across southern Europe other equally brainless hunters and trappers are watching to see whether their dumb counterparts in the Maltese killing-fields will be punished or not. And finally the rest of us really need to ask if we’re just outraged bystanders or are doing enough ourselves to either support CABS or BirdLife Malta (at the very least if you’re as enraged by these reports as I am then pay to join BL Malta) - because if we’re not we’ve certainly no right to question how effective conservationists are being if the killing is still going on.

My admiration for the birders who give up their time and risk their own safety to protect birds overflying Malta grows with each report I read and they deserve the highest praise, especially as they essentially must remain within the law whilst the hunters are allowed to flout it. Hopefully visitors to 10,000 Birds feel the same way (and those of you that don’t, like to tell us all why?), especially as I’ve contacted a couple of people within CABS who will soon be sending us first-hand accounts for posting of what it’s like to watch Europe’s Marsh Harriers, Honey Buzzards, and Black Storks blown out of the sky right in front of them….