Towards the end of last week, MEPA announced that its investigation on the tiger cub found in an air-conditioned Mosta warehouse had been completed. Officials of MEPA’s Ecosystems Management Unit concluded that the animal was just a normal captive-bred Bengal tiger that originated from the Slovak Republic and was not an endangered species. The investigation was obviously triggered by the fact that the authorities did not know that the tiger cub had been brought into Malta. According to this investigation, the transactions involving the tiger were all regular and in line with the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and therefore MEPA considered its investigation as complete.
End of story? Hardly!
The mind boggles. Is the discovery of the unknown presence of a tiger cub in Mosta just a question of whether CITES was adhered to or not? Is the importation of this tiger cub just a ‘transfer’ of one animal from one EU member state to another? The Malta Cat Society has rightly questioned MEPA’s line of reasoning since the importation of cats from other EU states into Malta is governed by a strict regimen – including a period of quarantine – while the importation of the tiger cub was apparently not subject to any conditions, so long as the tiger’s credentials were in line with CITES.
Has the legal notion of ‘importation’ been changed as a result of Malta’s EU membership? And in the case of trade between EU countries, is it now simply a ‘transfer’ of whatever commodity from one EU country to another? The idea is, of course, nonsense. No one in their right mind would consider anyone coming from Amsterdam with a consignment of heroin in a suitcase as simply ‘transferring’ the drug from one EU country to another. The person doing such a thing would be rightly accused in Court of importing the drug into Malta.
Would the importation of a pit-bull from the UK be considered as a ‘transfer’ of the animal from one EU member state to the other, with no questions asked so long as the pit-bull is not an endangered species? Hardly! The Animal Welfare Act, in fact, explicitly says that: ‘Save as otherwise prescribed, aggressive animals which may present a danger to the safety of man or other animals and which are classified as such by the Minister shall not be bred, imported or sold in Malta’. So that’s the problem: the Minister classifies pit-bulls as ‘aggressive animals’ but lets tigers off the hook!
The enactment of the Animal Welfare Act in 2003 repealed the provisions of the Code of Police Laws that dealt with the keeping and breeding of animals and that specifically said that horses, cows, sheep and suchlike animals could not be kept in Valletta. I used to say jokingly that this meant that in Valletta one could keep an elephant – presumably in some high-ceilinged ‘Piano Nobile’ – or even a crocodile in the backyard without breaking the law! The Animal Welfare Act changed all this and put things in their proper perspective – or so I thought until I heard the story of the Mosta tiger.
I must confess that the Mosta tiger is kept within a radius of two or three miles from my home on the periphery of Naxxar and the prospect of having a fully-grown tiger as my ‘neighbour’ does not enthuse me one bit. Soon, many Mosta residents might become the sort of endangered species that CITES does not cater for!
The Mosta Local Council has publicly ignored the issue and has reportedly spent more time discussing the siting of a fountain with a lifeless stone lion sculpture than the problems resulting from a fully-grown live tiger in their locality.
I say a fully-grown tiger, because that is what the Mosta tiger cub will be in a few months time. Adopting baby animals is so cute… until the animals become adults, of course. I remember how my little brother once persuaded my father to buy a cute duckling that he had seen at the Monti open market one Sunday morning. My brother really loved it and cared for it until within a few weeks it became a fully grown duck throwing its dirt all over the yard… And that was just a duckling, not a tiger cub!
Are there any regulations regarding keeping exotic animals in private premises for private ‘enjoyment’? Is there no legal obligation on the part of the owners of such animals to notify the authorities about their presence in Malta? Not just tigers, but also crocodiles, anacondas and what have you... stories of exotic creatures finding their ways out of private quarters are not rare abroad and the observation of the necessary safeguards – however obvious they might be – should be a legal obligation. Rather than saying that the Mosta tiger case is closed, the authorities should try to do something about this lacuna.
A Legal Notice (LN 265 of 2003) issued by virtue of the Animal Welfare Act entitled as the ‘Keeping of wild animals in zoos regulations’ does not put my mind at rest: the Mosta tiger is not available for public viewing but only for its owner’s private gratification. Hence it is not being kept in a zoo and these regulations do not apply.
This episode has also exposed the foolhardiness of merging the Environment Department with what was originally the Planning Authority, an entity concerned solely with physical planning and development. For besides the Ecosystems Management Unit, MEPA has other units that should have also reacted to the news of the discovery of the Mosta tiger.
In the world of physical planning, the use of a building is a basic consideration. One cannot use a garage as a stable or a pigsty without a full MEPA permit authorising this change of use. So, how can a warehouse – presumably built as such – be used as accommodation for a tiger cub – and apparently other animals – without a MEPA permit? Is the keeping of tiger cubs allowed in the Classes Order that covers warehouses? I bet my bottom dollar that it is not. Has an enforcement order been issued to whoever is using a warehouse for purposes not covered by established warehouse use? So how does MEPA ignore this fact and proclaim that the tiger investigation is ‘completed’?
From my professional practice, I know that the section that handles development permits gives a lot of importance – and weight – to what in the Structure Plan is termed as ‘bad neighbourliness’. I know of a number of cases where MEPA has refused permits for the installation of generators used only in emergencies and also for air-conditioning units in shops, always on the grounds that they are a nuisance to neighbours. But keeping tigers, apparently, is being let off this particular hook as well!
This whole episode is symptomatic of the situation in which Malta finds itself today. The country is being run by myopic civil servants who look at, and interpret, the rules and regulations that come within their remit in a very narrow-minded way, while the politicians ignore the big picture, absorbed as they are in their attempts to hold on to power or to attain it – as the case may be.
How sad!
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The investigation was obviously triggered by the fact that the authorities did not know that the tiger cub had been brought into Malta. According to this investigation, the transactions involving the tiger were all regular and in line with the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and therefore MEPA considered its investigation as complete. 
