Bird Life on Malta Nearly Wiped Out by Hunters

Sam Spade bagged the Maltese falcon, but even the fictional detective would now fail to find any of the proud predators on Malta, where avid hunting has blasted most bird life from the skies, land and seas.

Malta has one of the world’s highest density of hunters, with an average of 50 gun-wielding sportsmen searching for quarry on every square kilometer of the Mediterranean island’s arid countryside.

About every 10th Maltese male is licensed to hunt, and the national obsession has resulted in registration of about 56,000 firearms among Malta’s 350,000 residents.

Whether inspired by tradition, blood lust, or a weird urge to down creatures that can traverse the seas and are not island-bound, Malta’s hunting legions have ravaged the republic’s bird population.

“The birds come over, and think, ‘Oh nice, an island,’ ” mused taxi driver John Camelli. “They land and then--boom! boom!--they are dead. We now only see birds on television.”

The fate of the peregrine falcon is typical.

It was not unique to Malta, but falconers throughout the Middle Ages were lured to the island’s coastal cliffs, an ideal habitat for the predator coveted by aristocrats for its ability to hunt game.

When the Spanish Emperor Charles V in 1530 gave control of the island to knights of the Order of St. John, he charged a nominal rent of two falcons a year, one of which he took, the second going to the viceroy of Sicily.

The birds became linked with the martial prowess of the 700 knights, who with Maltese troops in 1565 defeated a force of 40,000 Turks after a grueling four-month siege, and effectively checked the spread of Islam into southern and western Europe.

But Malta doesn’t have any more falcons.

Paulo Portelli, director of the Malta Ornithological Society, said the last pair were killed in 1983, shot by a hunter who used a boat to get a good aim at their cliffside lair.

“I call it the Rambo syndrome,” Portelli said. “Don’t come to Malta if you want to see falcons. They won’t come back. They would be shot within hours.”

Experts are divided over the exact impact of hunting because no conclusive studies have been done.

But it is certain that Malta has few remaining resident birds, virtually no large predators, and that its migratory populations--which seasonally drift across the island between Europe and Africa--are steadily decreasing.

Portelli estimates that between 1 million and 3 million birds, mostly quail and turtledoves, are killed or trapped annually in Malta. The absence of predators has left crop-damaging rodents unchecked, he said.

Lino Farrugia, treasurer of the rather incongruously titled Assn. for Hunting and Conservation, attributes the overall decline to rampant development and the perennial clash between humanity and nature.

“The lack of habitat for the birds is the main problem,” he said. “If we don’t do something about it we won’t need hunters and we won’t need ornithologists. There will be nothing left.”

Hunters have responded to the paucity of land-bound quarry by taking to sea aboard fast boats, where they use electronic callers to entice birds and shoot them out of the sky.

But their tactics may soon end.

If Malta fulfills its wish to join the European Community, it must also adhere to the Berne Convention, a 1979 treaty that obliges members to meet strict rules on catch-weight, seasons, habitat protection, tactics and weaponry.

The government is also concerned that excessive hunting could scare away tourists, who may become wary of taking a vacation on an island where gunfire is a common sound.

The dispute has spilled into the political arena, with some hunters saying a ban on their sport could prompt them to vote against the government, a Christian Democrat administration that won power in 1987 from socialists by a very slender majority.

But hunting will always remain as long as many Maltese choose to rise at dawn, pack their guns and roam fields looking to shoot creatures fluttering across their island on the long journey.