Three kiwi killed by hunters

By Imran Ali

10:00 AM Wednesday Nov 18, 20153 comments

The ignorance of hunters using leg hold or gin traps that are laid on the ground are unnecessarily killing kiwis, a Northland bird expert has warned.

Northpower Native Bird Recovery Centre chairman Robert Webb this week received three seriously injured kiwis - two females and a male - which appeared to have been caught in traps that were not properly laid. All three had to be put down.

The 10 and 5-year-old females of breeding age suffered injuries to their leg and bill.

Mr Webb said the bird with a broken leg was brought by a landowner from Maromaku to the recovery centre on Maunu Rd over the weekend and the other female kiwi came from Parua Bay.

Another kiwi, a 10-day-old male, was found injured on the Mt Manaia walking track and brought in on Monday.

Checks revealed he had a compound fracture on his left leg, possible after it was caught in a trap.

Mr Webb said the bird could not be saved as infection had already set in the injured leg which would have damaged his kidney or liver.

"It's the worst part of our job to put down a bird which is a national icon due to human error. It's very hard to get the message through to people setting traps on the ground that it can kill a kiwi."

Continued ...

Another flamingo shot in Malta

BirdLife Malta thanks public, praises police and calls for Salina to become a nature reserve

June 2013. Another flamingo has been shot by so called hunters in Malta. The birds very rarely visit the island, and there are a few Maltese hunters that seem to have the same mentality of those that drove the Great Auk into extinction - The rarer it is, the more need to kill it.

Steve Micklewright, BirdLife Malta's Executive Director, has thanked members of the public for their help in monitoring the Salina saltpans, where it has been reported that poachers shot and killed a flamingo. Several people called police to report hearing shots and eyewitnesses to the incident have come forward to aid police in their investigations. Mr Micklewright said, "Without the help of several local residents living next to the saltpans, who were watching the area where the flamingo was last seen, vital evidence about the culprits may not have been available to the police."

BirdLife Malta also praised the police response to the incident. BirdLife's Conservation Manager, Nicholas Barbara said, "The work of the ALE and Naxxar District Police in responding to the incident and conducting follow-up investigations has been excellent."

BirdLife called on any members of public with further information relating to the case to come forward and report it to the investigating police.

Important bird sanctuary but a black spot for illegal hunting

Salina regularly attracts flamingos and other coastal wading birds and is designated as a Bird Sanctuary for its importance to migrating and resident species. But, BirdLife said that it remains a black-spot for illegal hunting of protected birds. "This is the third reported incident of flamingos being shot by poachers in the area in less than a year," said Mr Barbara.

Tourism potential being shot

Mr Micklewright concluded, "Considering the interest of the public- both Maltese and foreign tourists- in seeing and enjoying these birds when they come to Malta and the perfect habitat at Salina, we would like the authorities to work with BirdLife Malta and adapt their plans for the restoration of the saltpans to incorporate the creation of an area where flamingos and other species can safely reside, rest and feed- and, who knows, maybe even breed. This would add hugely to the tourist potential of an already historic site."

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/flamingo-malta.html

Hunter warned of bird massacre

The slaughter embarrassed even the most hard-headed of hunters. More than 800 abandoned duck carcasses that shooters did not bother to pick up. At least 150 endangered ducks killed, many among Australia's rarest. And other dead birds - hawk-like whistling kites and black swans - that look nothing like ducks. 

''It's terrible. It's absolutely disgraceful,'' said one of the state's leading duck-hunting advocates, Rod Drew, about the March shootings at the Box Flat private wetland near Boort, in the state's north-west. 

The public, including everyone in Game Victoria, is disgusted by what happened and we don't condone it in any way. Any suggestion that we, myself included, failed to do our job, I totally refute that. 

But a Fairfax Media investigation can reveal that the shooting spree - the likes of which Victorian authorities have not seen since the early 1990s - could have been prevented. Days before the incident, government officials were tipped off by a concerned hunter with a warning. 

This hunter, acting as an informant, told a Department of Sustainability and Environment official that Box Flat should be watched on the duck season opening weekend. Only a year before, in an incident never reported, trigger-happy shooters had gone to the remote wetland and shot birds indiscriminately. 

The shooters had ''shot the shit out of the joint, shot everything that moved'', the informant told the department. There was talk, the hunter added, that it would happen again.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/animals/hunter-warned-of-bird-massacre-20130512-2jg5r.html#ixzz2TTuykFE8