BirdLife Malta has announced that a young Audouin’s Gull, a threatened species, was found with serious gun shot injuries at the Valletta Breakwater early this week.

The juvenile bird was taken to a veterinary but had to be euthanized due to the extent of its injuries. Europe holds 75% of the global Audouin’s Gull population, with the majority of the highly localised breeding colonies located in Spain.

‘There are no records of Audouin’s Gull breeding in Malta, so this bird must have fledged from its nest a few months ago in one of its European breeding colonies.’ explained BirdLife Malta’s Conservation Manager Dr André Raine. ‘This bird represented one of the summer’s successful offspring and would have added to the European population of this threatened species. Instead it was shot down by a poacher in Malta.’

Over the last two months BirdLife Malta has been receiving reports of illegal killing and trapping of protected birds including a number of breeding species in Malta. The conservation organisation stated that in each case BirdLife received a shot bird, MEPA has been informed including this last case. These include a shot Marsh Harrier passed onto MEPA for rehabilitation on the 13th May, 2 Yellow-legged Gulls, a Little Bittern, a European Hobby and a Short-eared Owl.

“The number of protected shot birds we received during spring has declined drastically compared to previous years thanks to the spring hunting ban. However, poaching has started to pick up throughout the summer breeding season, as we have witnessed poachers targeting a new colony of Collared Doves in Gozo, and of several illegal cage traps being found for Turtle Doves scattered throughout the countryside. The rabbit hunting season has also been used by some hunters as a loophole to illegally shoot at birds.” continued Dr. Raine.

BirdLife Malta has continuously informed ALE about the ongoing poaching of breeding birds but the response from the ALE since early June has been very limited as most ALE officers are now assigned almost exclusively to other duties including beach patrols.

“The first ban on spring hunting will surely have conservation benefits for breeding birds on both an international and local level. However, as this latest incident shows, there are some hunters still breaking the law during the critical months of the breeding season. Even if only a minority of hunters illegally shoot or trap the breeding birds this summer, they will put an end to many of the breeding attempts by some of the rarer breeding species of Malta.’ concluded Dr. Raine.