Birds of Passage
Studies in Environmental Anthropology and Ethnobiology
General Editor: Roy Ellen, FBA
Professor of Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury
Interest in environmental anthropology has grown steadily in recent years, reflecting national and international concern about the environment and developing research priorities. This major new international series, which continues a series first published by Harwood and Routledge, is a vehicle for publishing up-to-date monographs and edited works on particular issues, themes, places or peoples which focus on the interrelationship between society, culture and environment. Relevant areas include human ecology, the perception and representation of the environment, ethno-ecological knowledge, the human dimension of biodiversity conservation and the ethnography of environmental problems. While the underlying ethos of the series will be anthropological, the approach is interdisciplinary.
Recent volumes:
Volume 25
Birds of Passage
Hunting and Conservation in Malta
Mark-Anthony Falzon
Volume 24
At Home on the Waves
Human Habitation of the Sea from the Mesolithic to Today
Edited by Tanya J. King and Gary Robinson
Volume 23
Edges, Fringes, Frontiers
Integral Ecology, Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainability in Guyana
Thomas B. Henfrey
Volume 22
Indigeneity and the Sacred Indigenous Revival and the Conservation of Sacred Natural Sites in the Americas
Edited by Fausto Sarmiento and Sarah Hitchner
Volume 21
Trees, Knots, and Outriggers
Environmental Knowledge in the Northeast Kula Ring
Frederick H. Damon
Volume 20
Beyond the Lens of Conservation
Malagasy and Swiss Imaginations of One Another
Eva Keller
Volume 19
Sustainable Development
An Appraisal from the Gulf Region
Edited by Paul Sillitoe
Volume 18
Things Fall Apart?
The Political Ecology of Forest Governance in Southern Nigeria
Pauline von Hellermann
Volume 17
Environmental Anthropology Engaging Ecotopia
Bioregionalism, Permaculture, and Ecovillages
Edited by Joshua Lockyer and James R. Veteto
Volume 16
Weathering the World
Recovery in the Wake of the Tsunami in a Tamil Fishing Village
Frida Hastrup
For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website:https://berghahnbooks.com/series/environmental-anthropology-and-ethnobiology
Birds of Passage
Hunting and Conservation in Malta
Mark-Anthony Falzon
First published in 2020 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
2020 Mark-Anthony Falzon
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Control Number: 2020016087
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78920-766-8 hardback
ISBN 978-1-78920-767-5 ebook
For Federico
Contents
Illustrations
Figures
Table
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the direct or indirect help of many people. As far as my academic formation is concerned, my greatest debt is to James Laidlaw, the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. Also at Cambridge, Matei Candea was generous with his time and knowledge, Kings College provided exquisite accommodation during my study trips, and the Department of Social Anthropology hosted me for a seminar on hunting in Malta that helped me shape my ideas.
The University of Maltas research infrastructure made possible access to generous resources. My colleague Paul Sant Cassia gave me liberally of his wisdom, as did the late Paul M Clough, Dominic Fenech and Gillian M Martin. Giuliana Fenech read and commented on a version of . The Italian government funded a research trip to Lampedusa and Linosa. Vahdet nal of Ege University discussed aspects of fish conservation and suggested key scholarly sources with me. Alicia Said, too, recommended sources on fisheries. Edwin Lanfrancos botanical knowledge helped me get the names of plants right.
The list of hunters who helped me is long, but Andrew Buhagiar, Raymond Cordina and Paul Debattista stand out. Victor Falzon is not a relative, but he still took the trouble to prepare the map. Raymond Galea and Aron Tanti generously provided original photographs from their impressive portfolios. I also wish to thank Joe Perici Calascione (FKNK), the late and fondly remembered Joe Sultana (BirdLife Malta), Axel Hirschfeld (CABS), Sergei Golovkin (formerly WBRU) and Joseph Lia (WBRU).
The Maltese archipelago. Map created by Victor Falzon, published with permission.
Introduction
Birds fascinate because they appear to be fundamentally alien forms of life removed from our environment and from our concerns, free to float above us and forever out of reach. They leave no tracks, and their journeys are for the most part invisible.
Jon Day, Homing: On Pigeons, Dwellings and Why We Return1
Among the earliest known animal images are small carvings of flying swans. Found at Malta, an Upper Paleolithic site in Siberia, they are made from mammoth ivory and are thought to date back at least 15,000 years. Wonderfully stylized and designed to be worn as pendants, they tell of a timeless human fascination with bird flight and migration. They also suggest that swans in particular have long been spellbinding and talismanic (see Cocker 2013). In antiquity, they were associated with Venus and Apollo on account of the unsullied whiteness of their plumage. In a passage in the Aeneid, the sudden appearance of swans is read as an auspicious sign (Impelluso 2004). The examples are many and as well-travelled as the birds themselves.
The mute swan is the best-known species of its kind in Europe. In flight, its stately and self-assured presence on lakes and ponds is transformed into over 2 metres of beating wingspan. The mute swan is fully migratory and freezing temperatures can displace it off the normal routes and wintering sites. So it was that a flock of swans appeared at St Thomas Bay in Malta, an island in the Mediterranean, on 20 January 2002. For the small crowd that congregated on shore, it was to be a short-lived charm. Within minutes of the swans arrival, a speedboat was in hot pursuit. On board, like demented Lohengrins, three hunters. Swans are powerful flyers, but their tremendous weight makes take-off a laborious process. A barrage of shots drowned out whatever wistful swansong there may have been. At least six birds were killed, three of which were quickly bundled into the boat, which then made off at great speed.
