CABS, Birdlife, call for enforcement of hunting, environment laws

BirdLife Malta and CABS, the Munich-based anti-bird hunting group, in separate statements today called for the enforcement of environmental and hunting laws.
In a letter to Police Commissioner Lawrence Cutajar, CABS complained about almost inexistant enforcement of the hunting laws at night.
Instead of taking a clear stand against wildlife crime, the police appeared to be actually tolerating the illegal trapping of plovers and the widespread use of illegal electronic bird callers during the night, it said.
"This impression is based on the fact that, despite a clear legal ban, in more than 83% of the cases reported by CABS the police simply did not respond to reports of illegal night trapping or the use of illegal bird callers."
CABS said that its teams have been monitoring and reporting illegal nighttrapping of Golden Plover and other nocturnal bird species on Malta and Gozo during November and December since 2014. 43 calls were made to the police, to report in excess of 100 illegal trapping sites and electronic lures.

All reports were made by phone. Thirty-six of these 43 reports were not acted upon.  The majority of district police stations simply refused to respond to...