No envy at all

The arrogance of the sentiments expressed by Carmel Farrugia (February 13) about the "passion" with which hunters pursue their hobby was meant to leave readers (Arnold Cassola included) speechless with "envy" of the lucky few who are able to indulge in this wonderful romantic love affair (namra, no less) with the cold blooded killing of defenceless creatures.

Well, it didn't. Mr Farrugia can rest assured that very few non-hunters, if any, envy hunters their loathsome hobby. The boastful attitude of hunters, as typified by the tone of Mr Farrugia's letter, is steadily turning hunters into a despised minority.

We have now reached the point where it is a safe bet that the vast majority of people would be pleased to see hunting abolished on our little islands.

Mr Farrugia's comparison of hunting with evils "in other countries from where our tourists originate" such as daily muggings, child molestation, racial discrimination, murder etc., is very apt. This is exactly the point - we have few of these crimes in our country but instead we have our hunters.

Malta would be a far more attractive place for people to live in and for tourists to visit were it not for this regular indiscriminate massacre of birds. This is a fact witnessed by the stream of letters to our newspapers from disgusted tourists who swear they will urge others not to visit these islands until the scourge of wholesale killing of birds is eradicated.

Such letters from visitors to Malta are not isolated incidents and are on the increase. They are only the tip of the iceberg. For every letter published in our newspapers there must be hundreds of visitors who came to Malta and were disgusted by what they saw but didn't write a letter. An MHRA survey showed that no fewer than 80,000 visitors to Malta were critical of hunting in Malta. Most of these people will not revisit Malta. To make matters worse, they will discourage others from holidaying here and give Malta a bad press at every opportunity. The cumulative effect of this negative propaganda will become very painfully significant if the minister of tourism takes no action.

To say that hunting is harming Malta's tourism industry has therefore nothing whatsoever to do with extremism or envy as Mr Farrugia claims. The writing is on the wall for all to see and rightly gives rise to genuine concern. Besides, the bird life on our islands is seriously threatened.

The foregoing applies equally to Lino Farrugia's more recent letter (March 1). All one needs to add is the following: There have been good traditions and evil traditions in the past. It is therefore illogical to justify something by calling it "traditional". The vast majority of Maltese now agree that the "tradition" of wholesale bloody slaughter of Malta's birdlife has become a totally unacceptable practice.