Category: Wildlife Crime

SHOUT! (Malta’s Referendum)

Posted on by Georgia Locock

Yesterday was a strange day. When I went to bed on Saturday night, I was very pleased after watching some badgers at a local sett, wondering what I’d get on my trail camera and curious into what the result of the vote in Malta about spring hunting would be. For some reason it seemed obvious to me that they’d vote ‘NO’ for many different reasons. For example the terrible consequences it has on the decline of many birds, whether it’s in Malta or wherever the bird is migrating to, the other wildlife affected, the fact that forests have been wiped out or maybe the fact that Malta seems to be referred to as the place with this disgusting slaughter of birds. The list of reasons voting ‘NO’ is endless.

I was up nice and early yesterday morning to collect my camera, eager to see what I had filmed and wandering if the cubs had appeared yet. I was very pleased with the footage. Unfortunately no cubs just yet but they shouldn’t be long now.

After looking through all my footage I refused to get ready to go out before I found out the result of the vote for the spring hunting in Malta. I sat patiently at my laptop screen. Refreshing every minute or so on Twitter and reading through all the articles that were published. It was very tense as I think, along with many others, that ending the slaughter of birds in Malta is essential.

Malta is a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the natural place for exhausted birds to rest as they make their long migrations between Africa and Europe. These birds are an easy target for the 10,000 bird hunters that occupy the countryside of Malta and each year countless birds are shot out of the sky in spring and autumn. Spring hunting is especially damaging to wild birds because these are the birds which have survived the winter in Africa and are flying back to Europe to nest and provide the next generation of birds.

The spring hunting of quail and turtle dove is an activity which is banned across Europe but still remains in Malta.  According to the hunter’s own report, 4,131 turtle dove and 637 quail were shot during the spring season of 2014.

The turtle dove has become increasingly rare following rapid population declines. The species is now included on the Red List of conservation concern meaning there are concerns that the species could become extinct in the UK within a decade. That’s just in the UK. There has been a 70% decline of these birds since the 1970s. One of the reasons because of this is due to hunting. They also hunt the birds during the Autumn but this doesn’t have as much impact as during the spring as then they are travelling to breed. Hunting these birds on their way to breeding grounds results in not only one bird dying but their offspring too.

Furthermore, a bird will reproduce every year, say for at least five years and hence the number of unborn chicks is multiplied. This results in the destruction of a whole generation. For example, if 4,131 birds were shot dead last Spring alone.  So, say each bird raised five young over five years, excluding the fact the birds will be male and female and turtle doves also have  problems with breeding due to habitat and food loss, that’s 20,655 unborn chicks over five years just from the birds shot in the 2014 spring hunting season. It is estimated that only 14,000 pairs breed in the UK every year. Now if you compare them figures it’s pretty obvious that the Spring hunting is having a massive impact on the decline of turtle doves, not just in the UK but for the species as a whole.

Then when the birds are travelling back for the Winter, away from Europe, the birds that did survive and their offspring could be shot anyway. They have no chance.

But turtle doves aren’t the only species that’s suffering. As I stated before, the spring hunting is targeted at turtle doves and quail. Common quail are also in decline. But, as well as shooting these birds, many Maltese hunters also use the spring hunting as an opportunity to target rare and protected species of birds that breed in Europe, such as Pallid Harriers, Cuckoos and Bee-eaters. The hunters like to pretend that the problems with shooting birds is only affecting Malta but this isn’t the case. Many of the birds targeted by hunters are the subject of big international conservation projects to increase their numbers where they breed. Other bird species are in fact not breeding in Malta simply because they are either being killed or because they are scared away by the continuous shooting.  Along with this, sound pollution also disturbs other animal species that breed in the spring.

I hope you can see that the spring slaughter of thousands of migrating birds is disgusting. How hunters can go out and shoot down migrating birds, which don’t even belong to Malta, and get pleasure from that along with knowing that not only turtle doves and quail are in rapid decline but so are many of the other birds they shoot which fly over. If this doesn’t stop then we will see birds becoming extinct.

Malta made the wrong decision yesterday morning. The spring hunting will go on. The persecution of birds which are becoming missing from European countries will continue. For me, along with many others, this was terrible news. The hunters really have no idea. When will they realise what they are doing and stop. I hope that this happens before it becomes too late. I’ve never seen a turtle dove yet the hunters in Malta may see a flock go over during the spring hunting season and shoot them all dead with no guilt or understanding whatsoever.

However it isn’t all bad news. People in Malta do want this slaughter to end. The margin of victory was tiny – 50.44% to 49.56%.

This isn’t the end though. Fantastic charities and organisations made this referendum happen and they won’t give up. They’ve got this far and we won’t give up either. Two of these charities are SHout and BirdLife Malta.

If you would like to help or get involved you can

  • Write to your local MEP and ask them to support this urgent call for action to stop spring hunting in Malta – click here
  • Share the word about the campaigns of SHout and BirdLife Malta. Perhaps on Facebook or Twitter, with the hash tag #stopspringhunting
  • Join BirdLife Malta and support their work for birds and nature in the Maltese Islands.

Whilst on Twitter and reading the articles about the referendum in Malta yesterday morning it was fantastic to see so much support, especially from fellow young people. However I did see some comments about boycotting Malta. I don’t think boycotting Malta is the answer. Yes we are angry, so am I but we need to use our anger wisely and turn it into a positive energy. As you can see a lot of people in Malta are against the spring hunting and they have some fantastic charities against it too. It doesn’t help that the Government in Malta are pro the hunting. I think the best option is to work with them and help where we can. By making ourselves heard, shouting above the noise and not giving up, we will win.

United Against Wildlife Crime

Posted on by Georgia Locock

The wildlife you see whilst out and about is without a doubt our real national treasure. These species were here a long time before us or any of our man-made national treasure and this is an important reason why we need to preserve them and stop them suffering due to wildlife crime.

This was illustrated with the first talk of the day by Broadcaster and Naturalist, Chris Packham. He destroyed a copy of a George Constable painting by attacking it with spray paint and tearing it apart. A painting by the artist George Constable is considered a national treasure and if someone was to destroy the original painting they’d be considered to have destroyed a national treasure. Due to this there would be all sorts of havoc. It would most definitely be top headlines on the news, in newspapers, online and the offender would get into serious trouble. But what about those people who go out and destroy the British countryside by killing species within it, surely they should be getting the same punishment however this isn’t the case.

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Yesterday I attended the Birders Against Wildlife Crime ‘Eyes in the Field’ conference in Buxton, Derbyshire. I arrived at about 8.20 and straight away I was able to engage with like minded people. This theme carried on throughout the day as I spoke to plenty of fantastic people and listened to a variety of inspirational and interesting talks. To pick a favourite talk would be impossible as they were all very good and including a range of important topics, from policing and the public engagement to investigations and politics.

After the talk by Chris Packham it was then onto the next one from CEO Badger Trust and Policy Advisor Care for the Wild, Dominic Dyer. He spoke about the badger cull and his recent meeting with the Environmental Secretary, Liz Truss which was very interesting and you can read more about it by clicking here. I found his talk very interesting as I feel very passionate about badgers and I am strongly against the suffering they put up with including the cull. I’m really looking forward to helping out with badger vaccinating soon. Next it was a talk about bats, how they suffer from wildlife crime and the laws to do with them. This talk was given by Malcom Hopton from Derbyshire Bat Conservation. Again I found this talk very enjoyable, as in the past I have done conservation work for bats which included going out with the East Staffordshire Bat Group and monitoring the bats at one of my local patches, Cannock Chase.

After the morning coffee break the day resumed with talks from two different investigation officers. One was Bob Elliot who is Head of Investigations for the RSPB and the other was Paul Tillsley who is Head of Investigations for the League Against Cruel Sports. These two talks were a real eye opener about wildlife crime as they made me realise how serious it is and how some people can be so evil against our national treasures. They both spoke about different case studies along with methods wildlife criminals use and how both organisations help to stop and solve wildlife crimes. They also gave an important message about how we all must remember to report wildlife crimes as if it wasn’t for people like you and me reporting them then they wouldn’t be able to stop the criminals committing their crimes.

It was then time for lunch and during the lunch break all the people who had attended, including the speakers all made their way to the front of the hotel to have a photo with the new Birders Against Wildlife Crime Hen Harrier Day banner. The Hen Harrier is a bird that has suffered incredibly from wildlife crime and due to this they have been pushed to near extinction in England. There are a number of different things that you can do to help our hen harriers, one of them is by voting for it for the National Bird and you can do so by clicking here.

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Here’s the photo and there you can see Henry the Hen Harrier!

After lunch, the afternoon started off with three different talks about wildlife crime and the police. As you can imagine this was a very important and interesting start to the afternoon. Obviously without the police we wouldn’t be able to punish the criminals who commit crimes against wildlife. The first talk was by Craig Fellows and he spoke about police wildlife crime training which was very interesting and similar to the local meetings that I attend about wildlife crime and strategies they undertake in my area to deal with wildlife crime. The next talk went against this slightly as Ruth Tingay spoke about the failure of wildlife crime enforcement in Scotland. The final talk of this part was by Alan Charles who was the Derbyshire Police and Crime Commissioner. Like the others, his talk was very interesting and he spoke about how his force is dealing with wildlife crime.

It was then onto the last group of talks for the day which were about politics and public engagement. It consisted of two talks, one from Chris Williamson who is the North Derbyshire Labour MP and the other from conservationist Mark Avery. These talks were both very engaging and between them they spoke about a range of subjects from the Badger Cull to Hen Harrier Day 2015. Chris Williamson was another passionate speaker who shared some great stories about his times out with the hunt saboteurs. So was Mark Avery who spoke about Hen Harrier Day 2015, which I’m very much looking forward to!

As you can see Saturday was a very inspirational day for me, it was also very important. As I stated at the start we need to preserve and stop our real national treasures from being destroyed. With help from enough people like those who I met on Saturday we can do that. After the conference I realised how those wildlife criminals, pro-hunting politicians etc have no chance and we will win.