Bird trapping in Malta may be coming to an end as the European Court of Justice has ruled that Malta has not abided by the terms and conditions needed to fulfil and justify a derogation from the EU’s ban on bird trapping.

The long-awaited decision means that the current Labour administration’s legalisation of bird trapping might have been in breach of European law.

“By adopting a certain derogation regime allowing the capture of seven species of wild birds, Malta has failed to fulfil its obligations under EU law,” the court said in a statement. “The Commission considers that the derogation regime laid down by Malta in the course of those two years does not meet the conditions of the Directive. It therefore decided to bring an action for failure to fulfil obligations against that Member State before the Court of Justice.”

“Malta has not adduced evidence that the derogation at issue is used under strictly supervised conditions within the meaning of the Directive. It considers that in the context of Malta, characterised by a very high density of licence holders, namely over 4,000, and of registered trapping stations, namely over 6,400, the fact that merely 23% of hunters have been subject to individual checks seems inadequate,” they said.

“Evidence shows that failure to observe the restrictions relating to authorised catch periods and locations, in particular by trapping inside ‘Natura 2000’ sites, has been rather frequent during the 2014 autumn capturing season,” they said.

The European Union’s Birds Directive allows bird trapping only under very specific conditions

However, after today’s ruling, it very well may be that Malta’s 2014 and 2015 derogation for the trapping of finches had breached EU law due in part to a clause related to the trapping only concerning “small numbers of birds”.

“The Court states that the condition relating to trapping in ‘small numbers’ cannot be met if the trapping of birds authorised by way of derogation does not ensure the maintenance of the population of the species concerned at a satisfactory level. The Court considers that Malta has not adduced sufficient evidence to show that that condition is met,’ they said.

They also cited a 2007 Birdlife Malta study as evidence that Malta’s bird trapping was largely affecting common finch breeding numbers on the island, especially in comparison to the rest of the Mediterranean.

“Even though Malta claims to have taken into account only reference populations from countries with stable or increasing populations, Malta’s selection of those populations has not always been consistent with the stated methodology. It is thus apparent from the Maltese authorities’ technical memoranda that those authorities took into account, for the purpose of the 2015 autumn capturing season, reference populations in decline or whose conservation status was not known,” the ECJ said.

Birdlife Malta have welcomed the decision, while conservation and hunting groups urged their members to keep calm ahead of the court’s decision

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]