BirdLife Malta Bluntly Defies Maltese Law and Government

Email Correspondece: https://bit.ly/4nR6Whs

Notwithstanding the large tracts of Malta’s public land and the hundreds of thousands of euros from Maltese Taxpayers money that have been and are being granted annually to BirdLife Malta (BLM) by the Maltese Government, BLM openly continues to challenge Maltese law and Government.  BLM’s latest malicious attack has been carried out through the misleading information they sent to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) in order to damage and jeopardise the Maltese Government's position on the scientific finch research programme.

BLM and BTO mischievous and appalling doings expose their authoritarian arrogance which ideology govern their behaviour, disregarding the facts and scientific objectivity they claim to possess.

This has now been further confirmed to the Federation for Hunting and Conservation – Malta (FKNK) in an email circulated by Dr Stephen Baillie, Honorary Research Fellow: BTO, which correspondence (attached) has been brought to the attention of the FKNK.

In view of all this, the FKNK asks:

- Has or will the Government react to the BTO international boycott of Government’s scientific finch research programme?  In this sense, the FKNK therefore looks forward to the removal of EURING from the local legislation and to the end of the bird-ringing monopoly that BLM acquired many years ago under dubious circumstances.

- Why does the WBRU (Wild Birds Regulation Unit) persist in issuing public tenders ‘behind everyone’s back’, including the FKNK’s?  A case in point is this 10 September 2025 call for foreign bird-ringers revealed in BTO’s email. 

- BLM’s original denial that they had refused to supply rings to a bird-ringer duly licenced by the WBRU has been fully exposed in BTO’s email that clearly and unequivocally explains what actually occurred. What legal proceedings have been or will be taken by the WBRU in respect of this BLM breach constituted by BLM’s outright refusal to adhere to a formal request by the Unit?  And this when, every trapper and/or hunter who does not adhere to any condition of the respective licence also issued to him by the same WBRU, is subjected to fines of many thousands of euros, and harsh penalties such as imprisonment and revocation of the licence for life. Again, in this sense, the FKNK also looks forward to the promised, adequate and balanced revision of hunting and trapping related penalties and fines, including the complete elimination of the draconic penalty that imposes a life-time revocation of licence.