Illegal hunting in Malta 'undermines European conservation efforts'

BirdLife Malta said today that it had recovered a juvenile male Pallid Harrier (Circus macrourus), one of Europe’s most threatened birds of prey. It was found with shotgun wounds by a member of the public in Gozo yesterday. It said this was the second Pallid Harrier known to have been shot in the Maltese Islands in little more than half a year. In September last year, another juvenile male was recovered, again in Gozo. The young bird, making only its third journey between Europe and Africa, was not seriously injured, was sent to the Centro Recupero Fauna Selvatica, a wildlife rehabilitation centre in Sicily. There are estimated to be as few as 310 breeding pairs of Pallid Harriers left in Europe, where it is undergoing steep population decline since the 1970s. “When you consider the small numbers of the bird left in Europe, the impact of having two even to individuals shot on their migration could be catastrophic,” the society said. It added that Spring Watch volunteers its conservationists have recovered three shot protected birds and seen numerous others being targeted by illegal hunters in the countryside in the first 24 hours of the bird migration camp monitoring camp. The...