Hunters’ boss claims Malta can win EU court battle for bird trapping

The Maltese government can win its case at the EU courts over its decision to reopen finch trapping, the president of hunting federation FKNK has claimed. 

Speaking to MaltaToday, Joe Perici Calascione insisted that Malta can derogate from the EU’s trapping ban under the conditions set by the Birds Directive, the EU law that bans trapping.

“I sincerely believe that Malta can apply a strictly supervised derogation on finch trapping, similar to the one it currently applies on spring hunting,” Perici Calscione said.

“I had hoped that the European Commission would have looked at Malta’s situation from a wider perspective and realize that we are doing all we can to regulate trapping before deciding to take the government to court.”

The European Commission is expected to announce steps against Malta in the European Court of Justice, after the Labour government’s refusal to reverse its decision to reintroduce trapping, which was phased out by 2009 according to the Malta-EU accession treaty.

The EU bans trapping and is only allowed unless strict conditions are met. 

However Perici Calascione argued that Malta’s accession agreement with the EU did not require banning trapping in its entirety, but that it had to be phased out by the end of 2008, subject to the setting-up of a captive breeding programme – something that was never fully implemented.

Perici Calascione said that the failure of the Ghammieri pilot project proved that a captive breeding programme simply could not work in Malta regardless.

He said the government’s legal argument for finch trapping could zero in on an article in the Birds Directive that allows EU member states to derogate from the ban “where there is no other satisfactory solution… to permit, under strictly supervised conditions and on a selective basis, the capture, keeping or other judicious use of certain birds in small numbers”. 

The FKNK has long argued that the breeding of birds in captivity cannot constitute an alternative to trapping, as the two are fundamentally different practices. 

“How would a similar arrangement sound to an angler who would be asked to pack up his fishing gear and enjoy fish bred in an aquarium in the comfort of his home?” the federation had questioned in a 2009 report that dramatically claimed that trapping was an integral part of some of its members’ lives. 

“Take away this way of life, and it would kill or rather murder an integral part of that individual,” it said. “The trapper has nothing to look forward to in life… He would have nothing to dream about, pray for, hope for, dress up for… He may look elsewhere, and maybe not in the healthiest environments for ‘alternatives’, he may fail to perform in work and even in sex, and his relationships will suffer. In fact, he might have nothing else to live for. He will suffer mental depression, verging on the suicidal.” 

A 2014 report by the government’s Wild Birds Regulation Unit argued that Malta’s hot climate and high noise pollution preclude wild finches from settling down on the island to breed. Also, the importation of captive bred finches produces better results in such a programme than the capture of wild ones, thus defeating the whole purpose of capturing from the wild. 

BirdLife Malta has welcomed the EC’s decision to refer Malta to the EU courts and has now called on them to apply a moratorium on finch trapping until the court reaches a decision.

“We applaud the Commission for not failing to intervene in the breach of EU laws to stop the suffering and pointless trapping of wild protected birds that the Maltese government has permitted, ignoring several warnings from the EC,” BirdLife conservation manager Nicholas Barbara said.