Protected birds once again targeted during 2026 spring hunting season

At least 14 birds were recovered with confirmed shotgun injuries during Malta’s 2026 spring hunting season, including protected species shot while migrating towards breeding grounds in Europe, according to BirdLife Malta.

The NGO said hunters again used the open season for Turtle Dove and Quail to target other migratory birds passing over Malta, with incidents increasing in the final week and a half before the season closed on 3 May.

The protected species targeted include the Common Kestrel, Marsh Harrier, European Turtle-dove (killed illegally before the season), European Bee-eater, Common Cuckoo, Eurasian Hoopoe, Wood Sandpiper, Little Egret, Spotted Crake, and Corncrake.

Among the casualties was a rehabilitated Common Kestrel that had previously been recovered after being shot in October. It was released on 10 February at a public event after the autumn hunting season ended and had been wintering in Miżieb, raising hopes it might remain in Malta to breed.

Its tracking device went silent over Miżieb on 22 April, despite BirdLife saying authorities and hunting federation officials had been alerted to the presence of a tracked bird in the area.

Other birds recovered from Miżieb in recent weeks included another shot Common Kestrel and a shot Common Cuckoo, both found by walkers in the area associated with hunting activity.

BirdLife said the documented cases were only indicative of the scale of illegal killing, pointing to insufficient enforcement and legal loopholes allowing the collection of protected migratory birds for private taxidermy. It also criticised the continued application of Malta’s derogation from the EU Birds Directive, despite an ongoing infringement procedure.

The latest casualties echo years of reporting by The Shift showing how Malta’s spring hunting season results from deliberate enforcement failures, with consequences that affect bird populations beyond the Maltese islands.

In 2023, The Shift joined BirdLife teams monitoring seven popular hunting locations and did not observe a single police enforcement unit. BirdLife’s Head of Conservation, Nicholas Barbara, warned at the time that birds shot in Malta were being “taken away from other European countries,” undermining conservation efforts across the continent.

A later investigation found that BirdLife teams had recovered 65% of shot birds during that spring season, while police presence was encountered at a maximum of 5% of prominent hunting locations monitored. Conservationists also warned that the actual scale of illegal hunting is likely far higher than recovered casualties indicate.

The problem is not limited to Malta’s jurisdiction.

A 2025 cross-border investigation co-published by The Shift traced Maltese hunters to illegal bird hunting networks in Egypt, where conservationists and hunting guides described Maltese hunters targeting rare and protected species and smuggling bird skins back to Malta.

The government’s nebulous reporting system for hunters’ catches also fails to truly capture the scale of the problem. In 2023, only 542 of 9,884 licensed spring hunters reported any catch by SMS, while more than 7,000 licensed hunters reported none.

Over a decade after Malta voted in the spring hunting referendum, protected birds are still being shot, while the government continues to resist the EU’s longstanding attempts at reining in Malta’s influential hunting lobbies.