Hunting enforcement

Minister George Pullicino thought it fit to immediately stop spring hunting. This decision carries a lot of responsibility and we still have to experience its repercussions. I am expressing my views as a law-abiding hunter, who went out of my way, risking my skin, to bring fellow hunters in my area to limit their sport to turtle doves and quails. I strongly felt that we were on the right track and there was the possibility of wiping out illegal hunting altogether.

What went wrong? To start with I expected much more enforcement from the police. They had new legislation with very harsh punishments to back their efforts. In my opinion much more was expected from the assistant commissioner to make an all-out effort to curb illegal hunting. The police/army force were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was 6.30 in the evening on Friday, April 27, after I had just emptied my gun and was about to drive off when three police officers asked for my hunting licence, checked my gun for the correct number of cartridges and having found nothing wrong insisted that I was carrying too many cartridges in the car and that they had the power to confiscate these cartridges since I was not supposed to leave them in unattended, locked-up car. Is this the kind of patrol that we hunters expect from the ALE?

Where were the police/army on Wednesday evening, May 9? How many hunters were apprehended for illegally shooting at protected birds? This could have been the appropriate moment to deliver the revised new penalties to the offenders. But nothing of the sort happened. There was no mention of hunters being caught red-handed and all this when according to the minister there was rampant killing of protected birds. I would have expected that no less than 50 hunters would today be faced with illegal hunting charges.

Where do we go from here? We shall soon read in the papers that BirdLife wants a ban on autumn hunting because now it's no longer a breeding issue. Does the government plan a total abolition of hunting?

Once again we law-abiding hunters were deprived of our rights because of a handful of happy-go-lucky hunters whom the authorities are not capable of handling. Tuning in to a small two-way radio is enough to guide the ALE to the right spot where illegal hunting is about to take place.

However, now it is over and done with. We have to wait and see and I strongly feel that now is the time for the FKNK, the Prime Minister, the Minister for the Environment and all other interested parties to forget their differences and get round a table to sincerely discuss how to put a stop to illegal hunting. Illegal hunting is not an excuse to stop the promised spring hunting. The FKNK has a big contribution to make and I am sure that if proper and genuine willingness from all concerned is shown towards solving this problem a balance may be found for the coming seasons. Action has to start now and the public has to be aware that the problem is in hand. Once an agreement is concluded between all parties the government should issue a press release confirming the opening of all the seasons as promised. This has to be done now so that all law-abiding hunters will be relieved and in this way we can prevent any repercussions that the abrupt stop to spring hunting may bring.