Hunting is natural

With all due respect to Mr Wylie Cunningham (The Sunday Times, April 12) we do not accuse all Maltese newspapers of bias against us, but only English-language newspapers that hunting in Malta seems to be always on top of their agenda especially at this time of the year.

These newspapers have the ability to influence the public and mainly foreigners to apply pressure on the authorities to ban spring hunting by all means. None of the newspapers ever reported how much it costs hunters to keep the environment in a good state, how much we clean after a Sunday afternoon picnic, how many stones we have to put back after the first rain, how many trees we plant.

It's easy to blame us for the reduction in tourists, rather than blaming the superpowers who brought the whole world into crisis. Countries whose main source of income is tourism will all see a reduction, and Malta is no exception.

Let the experts in tourism analyse the situation if there is an increase in number. If other Mediterranean countries progress then we should do better. The only difference is that the message we're sending abroad is a destructive one to our industry.

Countries which suffered attacks on tourist resorts managed to overcome this problem and started to attract tourists again. One particular country is also a hunting attraction which is also popular with Maltese hunters, and there are other Mediterranean countries that promote hunting as a tourist attraction. So why are we different?

Why all this commotion in the press? What exactly is behind all this? Is it the protection of birds? Or the land that we protect from developers? If we don't want to continue to damage our reputation, then just stop moaning about hunting. Hunting is natural.

I take this opportunity to praise our environment minister for taking the right decision.