Visiting ornithologists

British ornithologist Tim Hall (Ornithologists' Experience, September 28) either is trying to take readers for a ride or has been taken for a ride himself. If the briefing he was given on arrival in Malta had been that "excellent", he would have realised that his arrival coincided with the Maltese open shooting season, and he would not have been "appalled to hear gunshots from close by the old chapel, a well-known tourist area".

He should also have been told that the Dingli cliffs area is prime hunting territory, and that it is mostly private property owned by Maltese hunters who paid enormous sums of money to buy the land. As long as whoever was hunting kept within the legal distances from the road, he/they had every right to be there. This is assuming it was gunshots he heard and not automatic gas-operated bird-scarers!

The reporter was told "there were many local hunters who were shooting birds of prey as they rose from their overnight roost in the forest" (presumably Buskett). There are members of the armed forces stationed at Verdala Castle right in the centre of Buskett, and the ALE police invariably patrol the area regularly. Yet Mr Hall was "amazed that the Maltese government could allow this illegal slaughter to continue without serious and concerted effort".

Is he implying that the police are in cahoots with some of the hunters? Does BirdLife Malta share this line of reasoning? If it does, how does BirdLife Malta expect the concept of "self-regulation" by hunters to work out? How does it expect hunters to act as whistleblowers on law-breakers if the police themselves are not all that bothered to enforce the law, and maybe cannot be trusted to keep informants' identity secret?