Hunters bemoan coverage of shooting champion fine

The Federation for Hunting and Conservation yesterday lambasted the media for reporting that the top Maltese clay pigeon shooter was fined Lm50 for being in possession of an illegal bird caller while hunting.

Both The Times and Malta Today carried a story saying William Chetcuti, Malta's flag bearer at the Olympic games and four-time sportsman of the year, had been fined after being found guilty by the court.

The federation said the "reports were not only out of context but also aimed to demoralise one of the few persons who has lifted Malta's name in international sports, particularly on the eve of another important venture overseas".

It deplored the manner "by which a passionate hunter, who has over the last years sharpened his natural talent of sport shooting to international levels in the clay-pigeon sphere, is being slandered out of context with absolutely no particular aim but to cause him personal harm and misdirect his level of concentration".

"A minor misdemeanour caused by the use for hunting of a legally purchased bird caller and for which the man was duly charged and, rightly so, corrected by our judiciary, was used by our journalist patriotic friends to undermine the man's completely legal effort to promote Malta's chances of making a name in an international sport such as is clay pigeon shooting," the federation said.

"However, the man is also a hunter and this, to our journalists, is the window to a certainty of sensationalism and good-reading gossip. Shame!," the hunters' association said.

Apart from the fine, Mr Chetcuti's bird caller was also confiscated.