A bird activist group has accused local authorities of taking credit for the group's monitoring efforts in an attempt to "whitewash their own incompetence" in front of a European association. 

Maltese Wild Bird Regulation Unit head Sergei Golovkin had tried to mask the "total failure of his authority to control illegal bird trapping in spring" in a statement sent to the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law, the Committee Against Bird Slaughter claimed. 

READ: Bird trapping frenzy along Maltese coastline, activists say

Mr Golovkin told IMPEL that two trappers had been apprehended, 17 active trapping sites dismantled and 12 live protected birds seized thanks to "police patrols and WBRU´s enforcement action taken over the past two weeks." 

But in a statement, CABS said that the seizures and dismantlements listed by the WBRU "to impress their European colleagues" were "100 per cent" down to CABS reports to the police. 

"If you remove the cases reported by our teams from the list the government stands there empty-handed”, CABS press officer Axel Hirschfeld said.

The activist group also said that the 17 sites dismantled was a minuscule number when compared to the more than 50 sites which it had reported to authorities along with maps and photos.

"It's bad enough that the government does nothing against illegal trapping but it just takes the biscuit that they deceive the EU and IMPEL into believing that there is no problem”, Mr Hirschfeld said. 

Last week, CABS said that it would be reporting the government to the European Commission for its "de facto tolerance" of spring hunting. 

'Sore losers' - FKNK

In a separate statement, hunter lobby group FKNK mocked BirdLife Malta as "squanderers and sore losers" after the bird activists had said they did not rule out pushing for a second referendum on spring hunting. 

FKNK said that although "money poses no problem" for BirdLife, it was "outrageous and irresponsible" for the group to call for the "squandering of another €6 million of Maltese public funds to hold another referendum" just because they refused to accept the decision of the 2015 one.