PM asks police to probe claim some hunters enjoy protection

The Office of the Prime Minister has asked the Police Commissioner to investigate a hunters' federation claim that a few hunters who commit illegal acts enjoy protection.

The OPM called on the federation to cooperate with the police in their investigations.

The request came after the federation (FKNK) yesterday condemned illegal hunting while arguing that closing the hunting season because of abuse would amount to an unjustified collective punishment.

The federation added in its statement that those "very few untouchables" who persisted in illegal doings would not stop until the protection they may enjoy, from any quarter, is lifted for good.

The FKNK was mainly reacting to a call by the German-based committee CABS for the season to be closed after its activists in Malta said "hundreds" of birds of prey were shot on Saturday morning. The federation said no solid evidence of this has been produced.

Thousands of birds of prey were, in fact, observed on Friday evening, when no illegal hunting was reported, and the birds roosted in some wooded areas.

"The Federation for Hunting & Conservation - Malta, as always, condemns the illegal killing of wild birds and will never stand by anyone who performs such acts.

"Furthermore the FKNK repeats it will disqualify any of its members who are convicted of serious crime such as is being alleged by CABS," it said.

The federation insisted, however, that collective punishment was not the way forward, especially when no solid evidence of "hundreds" of birds being shot was produced.

"On May 10, last year, the government imposed such a collective punishment by abruptly and unjustly closing the hunting season because it alleged that a 'massacre' of birds of prey occurred the day before.

"To date, 500 days later, not a single shred of evidence has been brought to light nor has anyone been arraigned as a result of the 'massacre'," it said.

"For the last three consecutive years, the Ornis Committee recommended that hunting should not be banned during the last fortnight of September, citing as one prime reason that those few who still want to shoot birds of prey that come to roost in the evenings will do so in the early hours of the following morning.

"However, both last year and this September, the government seemed more inclined to accommodate CABS and let them freely roam the countryside, and so closed the season on both occasions."

The FKNK said that during a meeting its officials had last week with top police officers, the police informed FKNK it was due to the involvement and cooperation of FKNK alone that for a good number of years now, Buskett gardens has been rid of illegal shooting.

The federation said that out of the odd 260 reports of illegal hunting that BirdLife alleged to have received, the police have so far arraigned only seven persons with hunting related offences, out of which only three referred to illegal hunting.

The FKNK warned that it would file legal proceedings against two CABS activists primarily for trespassing.

It would also sue the organisation as a whole including CABS' prime motivator David Conlin (also a Life member of both BirdLife Malta and RSPB) who, the FKNK said, has been recorded as saying that CABS' next plan was to completely ban hunting and trapping on the Maltese islands and that they meant to do this by "keeping up the pressure (on the Maltese) relentlessly".

The FKNK said it was compiling a report to be forwarded to the European Commission.