Hunting in the UK (2)

I would like to congratulate Mr Martin Pisani (The Sunday Times, March 25) for articulating so well the discrimination and hypocrisy that exists on hunting, the species hunted, the ease of hunting and the lack of regulation. He so rightly points out that if a person has a mind to do it, then they can spend an unlimited time on an orgy of massacre in the British countryside, almost without restriction.

I cannot agree with 'sport hunting' at any level in any country, but I can agree with Mr Pisani that 'do as I say, not as I do' is the mind set of the majority of Malta's critics. One only has to look at the civil disobedience, or more correctly the outright law-breaking of the fox hunting community, to confirm that the minority frequently breaks the law in the name of hunting and tradition all over the EU.

Mr Pisani mentioned the difference of scale between Malta and the UK, and were it just turtle dove and quail that were hunted on these islands, I doubt that there would be much of a voice against it. Hunting for food, or culling to control the over-population of a species, is a completely different matter.

But 'sport hunting' to me is when humans kill or trap, just for the fun of it. This includes the shooting and trapping of rare and beautiful birds, the killing sprees that Mr Pisani talks of, and the sickening industry that breeds pheasant and the like, with the only aim being to blast them to death in an unfair contest.

My heart sinks and I am ashamed to be an homo sapiens whenever I see a bird fall from the skies, be it a lowly pheasant or a majestic Honey Buzzard.