No licensed trappers in Malta, but trapping continuesany way
Raphael Vassallo Is trapping legal or illegal in Malta? Five years since accession to the European Union, it seems no one can give a straight answer to this very simple question.
Technically, Malta’s most traditional form of trapping – that of wild finches, or ‘ghasafar tal-ghana’ – has been illegal since December 2008, when a four-year transitional period expired. But recently, government has reawakened hopes among Malta’s trapping community that a derogation might be possible for four other types of bird: namely, the Turtle Dove (Gamiem), Quail (Summien), Song Thrush (Malvizz) and Golden Plover (Pluviera).
And on 18 August, the Department of Information issued a statment, accompanied by adverts in the local press, which strongly hinted that the derogation was not only ‘in the bag’, and already applicable to this year’s season.
“In the light of the derogation that will be applied for Turtle Dove and Quail (between 1 September and 30 October 2009) and Song Thrush and Golden Plover (between 20 October and 10 January 2010), the government informs that the ‘carnet de chasse’ (hunting documents) will be sent out in the coming days.”
The statement urged all trappers interested in “making use of the derogation” to go to a police station with their carnet de chasse, as well as maps of their existing trapping sites, and “pay for their licences”.
Five weeks later, MaltaToday can confirm that not a single trapper has come forward to registered any interest in renewing their licenses, or for that matter submitting their trapping site maps.
The police’s Community and Media Relations Unit (CMRU) yesterday confirmed that the number of trappers to for licences to trap these four species, received since the DOI statement on 18 August, currently stands at “nil in every locality”.
“Kindly be informed that since the publication of the Legal Notice you are referring to, no applications related to this issue had been filed with the police,” PC Carol Fabri confirmed by email.
Added to the fact that no new licences have been issued since 2002, and that no previous trapping licences have since been renewed, this suggests that there are at present no licensed trappers of any kind in Malta. Ironically, even the hunters and trappers’s federation FKNK – which has been actively lobbying for a derogation fir years – agrees with this interpetation .
Contacted yesterday, secretary-general Lino Farrugia said he was unaware of any calls for renewal of licences currently under way.
“All I know is that there was a call for applications last year, but when trappers went to the police stations, they found that the police were refusing to accept any applications,” Farrugia told MaltaToday, “I know nothing about any new licences since then. As far as I know, no licences have been renewed this year. I can’t understand how someone can be licenced to kill a bird but not to capture one alive...”
Farrugia also dispelled any notion that trappers had “boycotted” the call for expressions of interest.
The FKNK are not the only ones in the dark: BirdLife Malta’s campaigns co-ordinator Geoffrey Saliba admitted to also being “perplexed” by the CMRU’s reply.
“It’s strange, as our fieldworkers have seen active Quail trappers, who we assumed were operating legally. We also know of trappers who said they applied for licences under this ‘derogation’”, he said yesterday.
Even if a derogation is obtained, it remains debatable whether it will be used for the declared purpose. Figures released by FKNK show that, of Malta’s former 4,000 licensed trappers, only a tiny minority – around 500 in total – were licensed to trap one or more of the above species.
Conservationists privately fear that the current talk of “derogation” is in reality being used as a decoy for some trappers to carry on with their (now illegal) pastime under the semblance of legality.
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