Powerful Street Art Depicts Uncomfortable Reality For Storks Flying Over Malta
It has been nothing short of a massacre. Out of a flock of 18 white storks which flew to Malta two weeks ago, only one remains, with the rest either shot or suspected shot.
And now a graffiti mural has been sketched by the Msida Skate Park as an ode to the dead birds and a reflection of Maltese society.
The unsigned mural depicts three storks getting pelted with bullets as they fly over Malta, and the bloody title reads ’No Country For Stocks’, a clear play on the popular drama ‘No Country For Old Men’.
Photo taken by Rikki Lee Scicluna
Six of the storks have been found shot and two men have been prosecuted in connection with their poaching. The other 11 remain unaccounted for, but BirdLife Malta’s conservation manager Nick Barbara said he suspects they were gunned down too.
“Unfortunately they were not staying in one place,” he said. “At night they would sleep in safe spots, like on cranes, but during the day they would move around probably going down into water sources in private fields and we suspect they were killed.”
“It is worrying that in 2018 we still see these incidents occur, especially where after 2014, then Animal rights Parliamentary Secretary Roderick Galdes in reaction to a similar incident in Maghtab had raised the fines up to €5,000 for killing storks.”
“It seems that hunters feel at liberty to abuse, as there is no strict enforcement. The fines are there, and are a deterrent, but nothing will happen until enforcement occurs. On the day the storks began being killed we had to wait around 70 minutes until the police came on site, with a dead stork near us in a field. It seems that the enforcement setup is not ready to react to such things, and that there are more people ready to go out for these birds than there is enforcement ready to react.”
The hunters’ lobby FKNK has condemned the poaching of the storks, describing it as a vindictive act against the thousands of law-abiding hunters.
What do you make of this street art?
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