Was Spring Watch Camp a manhunt, hunters wonder

The Federation for Hunters, Trappers and Conservationists (FKNK) said yesterday that during BirdLife's press conference last week, which "was supposedly about the Spring Watch Camp", not one person "of Maltese descent" was evident.

BirdLife still cannot make up its mind "whether this premeditated and provocative plan of theirs is actually a manhunt or a bird-watching activity", the federation added.

André Raine, BirdLife Malta's conservation manager, hailing from Bermuda, had just set foot on the Maltese islands (January 2007) "and he immediately proclaimed to be an expert and an authority on birds' migration over the Maltese islands".

It described some of Dr Raine's statements as fallacies.

Most Maltese hunters are honest, respectable individuals who have been targeted, persecuted and attributed a criminal title irrespective of their attitudes and practices, FKNK complained.

How can BirdLife Malta ever aspire to secure cooperation given its present ongoing confrontation attitude, it asked.

The federation noted that BirdLife has sought and, to some extent, may have thus far achieved the exclusion of hunters from the countryside this spring. "Unfortunately, this move is also counterproductive, because the majority of hunters, who also happen to be law-abiding citizens, have conformed to the current suspension.

"Their exclusion has seen to a complete freedom of movement, action and practices by the usual rogue few. This ought to have been taken into account while BirdLife deliberated on the Spring Watch Camp.

"Obviously, this was never the case, so now we have a great majority of hunters who are excluded from practising their passion... ," the federation said.

The federation queried whether the ban on spring hunting has led to a greater protection for birds. "We dare say no, because the law-abiding majority cannot monitor and sanction any uncontrolled practices, even if these occur in their own privately-owned land from which they are unjustly precluded," it said.