12 Aug What if it was a dog?
Back in November 2009, a certain Raymond Agius, a lovely 55 year old hunter was out hunting near a bird park that is privately owned by Kevin Mallia. At the time Mallia owned an African-spoonbill, which was bred in captivity.
On the 24th of November, our lovely hunter was out hunting. At the same time, Kevin Mallia was in his park training his spoonbill.
Suddenly, the spoonbill took off, as birds do, and flew out behind the park.
Being the lovely hunter that he is, despite African-spoonbills being a rare and protected species, Mr. Agius couldn’t resist, and Bang! Bang! Bang! He fired three shots at it!
Luckily he missed, and the spoonbill lived, but of course the hunter couldn’t leave it at that so he ran in the bird’s direction, to try his luck once again.
The bird’s owner caught up with the bird and desperately called out to Mr. Agius and begged him to stop shooting. According to Agius’s testimony, he also told the hunter that he couldn’t shoot the bird because it was his private property.
It is not clear from the court transcript whether the hunter heard the owner shouting, but quite frankly this detail is irrelevant because the bird should never had been shot at in the first place, not because it was private property but simply because it’s a protected species.
What happened next is disgusting and quite unbelievable so brace yourselves.
So the bird was lucky enough to dodge three shots, it is now frightened and lands somewhere behind the bird park. When Mallia finally got to where his bird had landed, he realized that it was very frightened. He therefore called a friend to bring him a net so that he could capture it safely and take it back to the park. At the same time, our very kindhearted hunter also approached the bird and, “at close range, fired a fatal shot.” He then walked away.
Mallia called the police to report the incident and the hunter started being investigated. Unsurprisingly, during a search at the hunter’s home, the police found a large quantity of undeclared stuffed birds.
The hunter was taken to court and was found guilty of shooting a protected species. A good number of undeclared stuffed birds that were found in his house were confiscated and, the court judgement said that he must have been aware that the bird was private property because it was wearing a special kind of ring that clearly indicates this.
The court fined the hunter €500 and slapped him with a 13-month jail term suspended for two years.
Please note that at the time, an African-Spoonbill was valued at €2375, so if I were the hunter, I would have thanked my lucky stars and walked away quietly, but no can do – the cheeky hunter was not happy with the decision and went on to waste more of the court’s time by appealing it.
In his appeal the hunter’s lawyer argued that at the time of the incident, when his client was questioned by the police, he was not given the right to contact a lawyer. He also argued that since his client had a clean police record, the suspended jail term was excessive.
So guess what? Whist the court of appeal remained convinced that Agius knew that the bird was privately-owned and yet still shot at it, and whilst the court was also convinced that the accused wanted to cause harm to Mr. Mallia, and whilst African-spoonbills were and remain a protected species in Malta, the judge quoted some legal technicality and waived the hunter’s €500 fine.
Now I wonder, what would have been our reaction had this poor spoonbill been a dog? Wouldn’t we be up in arms demanding more justice? Wouldn’t we be putting pressure on our justice system to teach this man and others like him a lesson? Wouldn’t we have protest walks along the Sliema promenade, Facebook campaigns, and petitions coming out from all sides? Wouldn’t we have at least a hundred stories about it in the media?
Of course we would, but this sad story happens to be about a bird and not a dog, and as Orwell once wrote back in 1945, ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
And if you thought that this was a rare case and that protected birds are hardly treated this way, here’s a SELECTION of shot, injured and dead protected birds that were handed over to BirdLife Malta between the 12th and 30th of April 2014. As you can imagine this is only the tip of the iceberg and certainly not in anyway representative of what really happens out there.
All casualties have been seen by a veterinarian who confirmed shotgun injuries as cause of injury or death. Individual certificates have been issued by the vet for each and every case and can be provided on request to BirdLife Malta.
Case: 1 of 17 Species: Collared Dove Date: 14/04/2014 Location: Delimara
Injuries: Gunshot wound to the chest Outcome: Rehabilitate and release
Case: 2 of 17 Species: Yellow-legged Gull Date: 19/04/2014 Location: Manoel Island
Injuries: Shot, broken wing, fishing hook stuck in mouth Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 3 of 17 Species: Scopoli’s Shearwater Date: 19/04/2014 Location: Comino
Injuries: Shotgun injury to the wing Outcome: Given to ALE (21/04/2014)
Case: 4 of 17 Species: Common Swift Date: 21/04/2014 Location: Safi
Injuries: Shotgun pellet wounds to body Outcome: Presented dead
Case: 5 of 17 Species: Common Kestrel Date: 22/04/2014 Location: Siggiewi
Injuries: Shotgun pellet wounds to wing and shoulder Outcome: Given to ALE (22/04/2014)
Case: 6 of 17 Species: Montagu’s Harrier Date: 23/04/2014 Location: Siggiewi
Injuries: Shotgun wound to the right wing Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 7 of 17 Species: Common Kestrel Date: 24/04/2014 Location: Ghar Lapsi
Injuries: Broken right wing, pellets in right leg Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 8 of 17 Species: Racing Pigeon Date: 24/04/2014 Location: Mosta
Injuries: Shotgun wound to the chest Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 9 of 17 Species: Common Kestrel Date: 25/04/2014 Location: Girgenti
Injuries: Shot, right wing fractured Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 10 of 17 Species: Hobby Date: 26/04/2014 Location: Attard
Injuries: Shot, both wings fractured Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 11 of 17 Species: Golden Oriole Date: 26/04/2014 Location: Rabat
Injuries: Shot wound to the chest Outcome: Presented dead
Case: 12 of 17 Species: Common Kestrel Date: 27/04/2014 Location: Mosta
Injuries: Left wing fracture, shotgun injury Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 13 of 17 Species: Common Kestrel Date: 28/04/2014 Location: Zejtun
Injuries: Left leg open fracture, shotgun injury Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 14 of 17 Species: Common Kestrel Date: 27/04/2014 Location: Kalkara
Injuries: Blind on left eye, shotgun injury, pellets in body Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 15 of 17 Species: Hobby Date: 29/04/2014 Location: Salina
Injuries: Shotgun injury, right wing fractured, right eye blind, left wing bruised, general poor condition Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 16 of 17 Species: Common Kestrel Date: 29/04/2014 Location: Mgarr ix-Xini, Gozo
Injuries: Shotgun injury, right wing fractured; malnourished Outcome: Euthanasia
Case: 17 of 17 Species: Stone Curlew Date: 30/04/2014 Location: Balluta Bay
Injuries: Pellets in body and both wings, open fracture to right leg, fell off Outcome: Rehabiliation
*This article was first published on The Malta Independent on Sunday.
