Bird shooting is not hunting

I could hardly consider shooting birds as amounting to "hunting". Hunting was practised when homo sapiens needed food for survival.

In the year 2007 (almost) shooting innocent, pretty birds is just plainly horrendous. It is not a pastime or a hobby. It is just mere viciousness!

Hunting, or poaching, is a grievous illegal act the world over, even among bushmen, jungle dwellers and primitive tribes wherever.

If I were a bird I would most definitely reroute flying over Malta. How anyone can find satisfaction in killing a bird or a duck is just beyond me. In a world where you get beaten in certain countries for wearing a fur coat, where so much importance is given to educating our children to love and respect and protect nature, I must say that "bird shooting" in Malta ought to be condemned and the perpetrators of such activity fined heavily. Has anyone of the Christian bird shooters heard of St Francis of Assisi? How he loved birds and animals and spoke to them and even dedicated poems and lyrics to them? "Professionist, politician, clergyman" (I quote a letter in a recent edition of The Sunday Times), it is really not a question of early morning noise. It is first and foremost a question of education, human civilisation and respect towards nature and its creatures.