Dossier on hunting passed on to European Parliament

The President of the European Parliament Pat Cox was last week given an extensive dossier entitled "An urgent plea to urge the European Parliament for a total ban on bird shooting in Malta" by a Gozitan who prefers to remain anonymous locally, fearing reprisals by hunters.

Mr Cox was in Malta last week on an official visit.

The Gozitan, who passed on a copy of the dossier to The Sunday Times, said he suggested to Mr Cox that the document would also be passed on to the EU commissioner to the Environment Margot Wallström.

Copies of the dossier have also been sent to PROACT, the Internet-based association working for the protection of birds, and David Camilleri, the artist who had raised Maltese hunters` ire with his video installation called Il-Gagga (the cage), in which he exposed the cruelties of hunting and trapping.

The dossier includes a brief introduction about hunting and trapping in Malta. The rest is a collection of press cuttings from English-language newspapers dealing with hunting and trapping.

The press cuttings range from letters to the editor to news items about rare, large or colourful birds that were reported shot by Maltese hunters.

Articles accompanied with photos of dead or wounded protected birds, such as swallows, swifts, bee eaters, hoopoes, orioles, or large birds such as swans, herons, harriers and shearwaters, are use to prove the point that Maltese hunters kill all kinds of birds.

The Gozitan argues that Maltese hunters cannot be trusted to shoot only at game birds because they literally shoot at anything that flies.

Various press cuttings show that the recent killing of a huge number of honey buzzards in just one afternoon was not a one-off phenomenon.

"Maltese hunters decimated thousands of birds of prey over the years. On several occasions, thousands were killed in one day. In April 1987, thousands of red footed falcons were killed in one day. In both 1993 and 1996, over 50 short-toed eagles were shot on two particular days," the Gozitan says.

"The EU cannot trust Maltese hunters, who claim that hunting is a tradition and are putting pressure so that they will continue to be allowed to shoot in spring. It is not just quails and turtle doves they are after. They want to kill anything that flies and the EU cannot be seen to be collaborating in the massacre being committed year in year out by hunters," the Gozitan said.

Only yesterday, a flamingo was killed at Salina, once again angering bystanders shocked by the wanton destruction of such a beautiful bird.