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BirdLife Malta have produced a heart-breaking and highly effective video to promote their petition demanding the Maltese prime-minister ban illegal hunting. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0SgNMBvVoQ. Watch it, think about it, sign the petition. Please.

The international petition against illegal hunting in Malta which we highlighted last week has received over 22,000 signatures in just one week. “Although the BirdLife partnership is primarily targeting its members with this petition and it has been only a week since we launched it, support is pouring in from all corners of the [...]

Join BirdLife Malta’s conservation camp to stop illegal killing of birds this spring

11th April – 30th April 2010
 

 
What is Spring Watch Malta about?

Spring Watch Malta is a conservation camp which forms an integral part of BirdLife Malta’s fight against illegal spring hunting. This camp is being organised during the peak spring migration period in Malta [...]

Geoffrey Saliba, the Campaigns coordinator for BirdLife Malta, emailed me this morning asking if 10,000 Birds would be willing to highlight a new initiative to end the illegal hunting of birds in Malta.

I should say so. We’re quite proud of the way we’ve managed to get up the noses of the thugs that masquerade as [...]

 
Organisation: The Committee Against Bird Slaughter
 
Who are we?
The Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) is the English title for the German “Komitee gegen den Vogelmord e.V.”, a recognised independent non-profit conservation organisation based in Bonn. CABS is a non-partisan and politically independent organisation which finances its operations and day to day activities exclusively through donations [...]

The war on birds in southern Europe continues, and so does our support for the organisations (and brave individuals) who put themselves in the way of the morally-bankrupt hunters and trappers who so clearly act OUTSIDE of European law. We’ve highlighted illegal hunting on Malta (eg here and here), then illegal trapping on Cyprus, returned [...]

“Malta’s War against Birds”
Written by Andy Gibb (http://pokerbird.blogspot.com/)
23 September 2009
 
 
Malta’s War Against Birds
 
What you won’t see in any travel brochure: “Watch magnificent birds of prey that have flown the length of Europe blasted out of the sky. See those that only have their legs blown away die slowly from being unable to land. Marvel at [...]

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, [...]

Regular readers will know of our deep-seated disgust at the illegal hunting that takes place in Malta. In the past I’ve personally been accused of ignorance about the hunting situation (which is rubbish), ignoring illegal hunting in the UK (which is rubbish too - see eg Who killed the harriers?) and even racism towards the [...]

Why it needs the EC of Justice to explain to the Maltese hunting community that killing migrant Quail and Turtle Dove in Spring “before they have had a chance to reproduce” has a more significant impact on numbers “than it would [in the] autumn or winter, after the breeding season” and is therefore in breach [...]

Regular readers will probably know of the ‘love-hate’ relationship we here at 10,000 Birds have with Malta’s illegal hunters (we love the birds, hate the freaking illegal hunters - and, yes, they’re not all that keen on us which is something of a badge of honour as far as I’m concerned), and when I was [...]

B In the early morning of April 14th, Ray Vella, working for the “Foresta 2000” afforestation project was shot in the head and right ear by an aggressor when inspecting the project area in Mellieha. Foresta 2000 is a partnership of BirdLife Malta, the Parks Department of the Maltese Ministry for Resources and Rural [...]

Just what is it about southern Europe that causes some of its citizens to act like throwbacks to the Stone Age: the weather, the lack of effective policing, a hole where morality would normally reside?

I only ask because over the last two weeks a number of items have appeared on the BirdLife International website [...]

Despite a ban on spring hunting, many of Malta’s despicable hunters ignored the law and took to the countryside to gun down migratory birds as per usual last week. No doubt I’ll get the usual mails accusing me of ‘racism’ or ‘ignorance’ but I’ll take the flak if it means these ignorant people keep getting [...]

Sigmar, the Lesser Spotted Eagle shot in the autumn in Malta and returned to Germany for rehabilitation, has had to be put down after infections around the gunshot wounds worsened. The Times of Malta has the whole sorry story.

On November 6th I was listening to the State opening of Parliament on the radio when the veteran Labour MP Dennis ‘The Beast of Bolsover’ Skinner suddenly shouted out “Who killed the harriers?” as the Queen walked in. The puzzled radio commentator asked aloud, ” ‘Who shot the haggis’, did he say?” and moved swiftly [...]

 
Organisation: BirdLife Malta http://www.birdlifemalta.org
 
Who are we? BirdLife Malta is a partner of BirdLife International, a conservation organisation operating in over one hundred countries and territories worldwide. Founded in January 1962 as MOS (Malta Ornithological Society), it is the oldest environmental organisation in Malta. BirdLife was instrumental in the creation of the Ghadira and Is-Simar [...]

A Photo-Gallery from this year’s spring migration in Malta
 

How Malta’s hunters prefer their Turtle Doves
 

A Bee-eater - left to die and found by school-children…
 

A Greenshank…mistaken by a Maltese hunter for a Turtle Dove perhaps…
 

One of Europe’s rarest raptors, Pallid Harrier, becomes even rarer…
 

Another protected raptor, a Marsh Harrier, that tried to [...]

The brave, mature hunters of Malta (motto “No bird too small to blow apart, no bird too rare to kill” perhaps?) have reacted like spoilt little toddlers to BirdLife Malta’s campaign to get them to grow up and accept that illegally slaughtering migratory birds year after year is just not acceptable, ie by not growing [...]

It’s spring - at last - and migratory birds are returning from their winter quarters, flying up through the Mediterranean and onto Europe: at least, some of them are. Unfortunately an unlucky few will be flying over Malta - a land of genuinely friendly, proud people AND some of the most brutish hunters in Europe. [...]