“possibly desperately resorting to illegal and corrupt methods to abolish the traditional socio-cultural practice of live-finch capturing from the Maltese islands,” claiming that BirdLife had been using electronic devices to eavesdrop on private mobile phone conversations. “Possibly, a false GSM base station known as ‘IMSI catcher’ or similar was used to intercept the trappers’ mobile traffic in the immediate area,” the hunting federation said.
But MaltaToday has learnt that the would-be “eavesdropping equipment” are actually antennae set up for 15 to 20 minutes in different locations to establish accurate GPS positioning data as part of a research study on coastal land-sliding being carried out by an Italian team of experts on behalf of the University of Malta and with the full cooperation of local authorities. more
