Shackled by Brussels, bird trapping enters its death throes

Lino Farrugia, the secretary-general of the FKNK, complains that there is no legal reason for the government not to open the season for trapping if it has opened it for shooting birds.

“If the catchable species – Turtle Dove, Quail, Golden Plover and Song Thrush – can be hunted, government doesn’t need to derogate from the Birds Directive to ‘take birds from the wild’,” he says quoting the European law that bans spring hunting. “It’s the State that has to decide how we are to take the birds.”

Although Malta faces infringement procedures on bird trapping by the European Commission, Farrugia is clear about the way he portrays the government’s move. “This is not something being imposed by the EC – there is no need to apply the derogation. The Birds Directive says nets for trapping are not permissible when they result in non-selective, large-scale trapping that can cause the disappearance of the species.

“But MEPA itself recognised that less than 1,000 plover and thrush altogether have been trapped between 2005 and 2006.”

So Farrugia claims that government is only responding to the growing public perception against hunting and trapping, and that the countryside “should be closed” to hunters. He cites the BirdLife ‘reclaim our countryside’ campaign as an example.

BirdLife’s campaigns coordinator, Geoffrey Saliba, offers a less occult reason as to why the government is not opening trapping in autumn – and perhaps why it will never be able to open the season for trapping again.

“The European Commission opened an infringement case against Malta concerning autumn bird trapping in June 2011,” he says, quoting an email coming directly from the office of European Commissioner for environment Jan Potočnik.

That was because Malta derogated from the Birds Directive without satisfying the conditions for trapping. Apparently, it did not buy the figures cited by MEPA for birds trapped since Malta joined the EU.

But why is trapping so different from shooting for birds? Saliba spells it out concisely: it is a method that is particularly efficient because whether the birds are caught alive or dead, it removes them from nature. “Furthermore, it involves the preparation of a site intended to be attractive to birds by hiding the apparent danger to them.”

So when it came to derogate from the Birds Directive, Malta had failed to satisfy the specific conditions to allow trapping.

“Whatever the species, even the catchable species (Turtle Dove, Quail, Golden Plover and Song Thrush) bird trapping using nets is prohibited under the Birds Directive,” Saliba said.

However, member states may derogate from this provision and allow trapping provided that all the strict conditions set out in the Birds Directive are respected – absence of satisfactory alternative, selectivity, small numbers, judicious use, and strict supervision.

“That’s easier said than done. They are prerequisites which build up to the requirements on how to apply the derogation. So is their judicious use being done? No? Then trapping is out. You don’t go on to tick the other boxes. Is there a satisfactory alternative? No. Then that’s it,” Saliba said.

In fact, as pointed out by the EC not all the above conditions were met when Malta derogated from the law.

“That’s why the government could not open the season for trapping. It does not have the data to prove it can meet the conditions,” Saliba said. “And I doubt how much trapping can continue further in Malta from now on.”

Meeting with Labour

It would also seem that, unless they are thrown a bone right before election time, the FKNK has found the Labour Party to be more amenable to their cause. Or at least, they meet regularly enough with shadow home affairs minister Michael Falzon and party president Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi.

Their alienation from the government makes itself evident by Lino Farrugia’s remark that the OPM announces the hunting season only weeks before it is scheduled to open, when the Ornis Committee would have presented its recommendations back in June.

This shrewdness gets to the hunters, he points out. “It’s a tactic of divide and rule, because some hunters actually like the fact that they can go into the grounds usually reserved for trapping to shoot.”

And he complains that whereas before, the FKNK was involved directly in government’s case with the EC at the European Court of Justice over spring hunting, now it wants to get rid of the lobby.

“They expected that the ECJ would not uphold their case and then it could use the judgement as an excuse to close spring hunting for good. But the ECJ sentence turned out to be positive for us, because now we set the parameters for derogating from the spring hunting ban. But now we’re not being heeded at all when we tell government we have the data necessary to justify bird trapping.”

With Labour, the FKNK says it is pushing to remove the gold-plating from the hunting laws – he mentions the afternoon ban as an example. “Labour tells us that any law would have to be squarely within EU parameters, which we accept. We are now going through the legislation and making our proposals, making our case bit by bit.

“I see that we are being heard, and that’s what we expect from government.”