The truth about turtle dove population

In his letter of April 26, Joe Aquilina St John, has become the norm with the anti-hunting lobby, chooses to misinterpret my letter of April 22 (Turtle Doves Are A Plague).

He digresses completely from the subject by once again pulling illegal hunting or better still poaching into the story. He should by now have realised that poaching has been on the decline for the past years and I sincerely hope that he is aware of the exorbitant fines imposed on anyone caught breaking the law. These, together with a noticeable increase in enforcement, are surely a deterrent to hunters intent on flouting bird regulations. All that law-abiding hunters want is to practise what was promised to them prior to the EU accession. And that is spring hunting for two species within the framework of sustainability and yes why not, with more enforcement to see that hunting remains restricted to turtle doves and quails.

But now back to the turtle dove story. Mr Aquilina St John is trying to put words into my mouth. I was at no point implying that our farmers are facing the same hardships as the Libyan farmers who are faced daily with the ever increasing number of doves damaging their crops and neither, as he points out, have I ever heard them plead with FKNK for us to harvest turtle doves. However, the fact remains that turtle doves are present in huge numbers in North African countries particularly Libya, Tunisia and Morocco and I together with friends and members of my family are witness to that.

Turtle doves migrating northwards from their sub-saharan wintering grounds amass themselves in huge numbers on the North African shores waiting for favourable weather conditions to cross the Mediterranean. It is a known fact that for the past two decades or so, more and more turtle doves are becoming sedentary in North Africa.

The urbanisation of what was before an arid desert country and the availability of water and suitable nesting sites have all contributed to this phenomenon. Notwithstanding all this, several thousands still cross the Mediterranean bound for the European mainland, a minimal percentage of which migrate, not breed, over the Maltese islands.

Here, I will reiterate my point, that the taking of a few thousand doves in spring will never have an effect on the species' population. However, Mr Aquilina St John and others of his ilk seem to be oblivious of these facts and blurt out only what they deem to be convenient.