The rationality of hunting

From the start, I must make clear that this is not a plea for compassion, though some will deny it, but a call for rationality.

Lately countless letters, editorials and opinion pieces have been written on hunting, covering every aspect from hunting dogs up to divine intervention. Hunters' suspicions turned out to be stark reality when, due to flawed pre-accession negotiations by the government, this year's spring-hunting season was banned by the ECJ. The government's obsession to join the EU back in 2004 meant that the deal had to be sealed at any cost, even if obtained by misinformation and half-truths.

Gone are those April days when on seeing the game bag slung across your shoulder, the neighbour would inquire about your catch, or at times ask you for "żewġ gamiem għal brodu" (a brace of turtle doves for broth). Spring hunting was taken for granted and accepted as part of life in spring.

But all of us are now portrayed as camo-clad gunmen, and branded as killing machines.

Patronising foreigners threaten tourism boycotts whilst ignoring the atrocities taking place in their own countries, and foreign abolitionists feed the local media with bursts of sensationalism and over-inflated figures in a frenzy of malicious propaganda. We are accused of destroying Europe's bio-diversity and of practically exterminating the entire Streptopelia turtur species. This is extremely unfair, and also very far from the truth. Hunters come from all rungs of Maltese society and include doctors, bank managers, lawyers and other people of standing. It is also statistically proven that the turtle dove population overall is healthy, and considered widespread and abundant by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The well known fact that local game bags have dwindled is due to changes in bird migratory patterns, heavy urbanisation, increase in night lighting, and other factors unconnected with hunting. One Maltese hunter's catch for the spring-season is on average equivalent to one UK hunter's catch in just one hour of permissible spring shooting.

I honestly believe that all those non-hunters out there find it even more difficult and at times impossible to understand why we hunt. The close contact with an awakening spring countryside, a dewy dawn in spring, the first warm rays of the sun on your face as you wait for the sight of a darting turtle dove or two, the magic moment when your dog stands still on a point, the beating of your heart before the expected rise of a bird, the thrill of a decent shot and subsequent retrieve, all these emotions and feelings make up part of the joys of hunting. And they can never be explained, or understood by someone who is not a hunter himself.

I was brought up to appreciate and nurture hunting as a way of life. It is in fact an integral part of my life and of all those who like me, are real hunters. And hunting is partly what makes us agreeable humans. Those who try to restrict, or worse, to abolish hunting, are acting against our humanity, and that is something I and my fellow hunters will never, repeat never, tolerate or accept.