With the advent of the migrating season, articles against the illegal persecution of protected birds with the usual emotive pictures become the norm.
Before going any further, this persecution is far less rampant than BirdLife Malta depicts it to be and Maltese law caters suitably for its eradication.
However, BirdLife Malta's aims thrive on the persecution of protected birds.
Their anti-spring hunting campaign is based on the argument that spring hunting of turtle dove and quail is an excuse for hunters to shoot anything that flies. BirdLife Malta is on record as having agreed to Malta derogating, knowing that derogation was allowed only "under strictly controlled conditions" and could be revoked should their accentuating of illegalities prove credible. They have since made it their mission to turn molehills into mountains.
Following an incessant campaign in the local and foreign media, they now also resort to recruiting "foreigners" to visit Malta during migration from CABS, the RSPB and other birding societies sharing their same anti-hunting agenda. Hunters have been falsely accused of anarchy and mayhem, of 24-hour massacres and many other untruths. Considering that Malta has over 16,000 hunters, the few reported incidents are definitely not indicative of these accusations. These anti-hunters seeing the possibility of a hunting ban for Malta and a very obliging government scrutinise others rather than see to their own country's far worse problems.
Tolga Temuge (Protected Birds Are Being Shot, April 1) wants the government to stop seeing "the hunting issue as a dispute between two sides"; therefore, he might want to stop making the issue precisely so. Ironically, the government has a policy to involve BirdLife Malta together with the hunting association in matters relating to hunting - BirdLife's agenda makes disputes inevitable. It seems that the Prime Minister believes in BirdLife Malta's crusade, welcomes their foreign supporters with open arms and wishes things to remain that way.
If BirdLife Malta really wants to eradicate the illegal persecution of protected birds and not use it as an excuse to ban all hunting, they should work on their own credibility. BirdLife's biologist Andrè Raine signed (No. 1745) a ban on hunting in Malta originated by the CABS Malta Coordinator, David Conlin, from Proact. Can any of BirdlLife's "scientific' reports including those on illegal hunting ever be considered as credible knowing that the person responsible for such reports is totally biased against hunting?
If indeed BirdLife Malta's concerns are purely the issue of the persecution of protected species or if it expects any form of credibility, it could start by convincing all that its participation in the Maltese Ornis hunting committee has anything constructive to offer.
A public statement that it "tolerates" legal hunting would certainly help clear the general perception of BirdLife Malta being abolitionists.
Certainly, such a statement will never materialise since BirdLife Malta would rather live with dispute and rely on the obliging media and its anti-hunter friends for support. After all, what do BirdLife Malta care about legal hunting, it is a hunting ban they are after. Moreover, they will do anything to get there. Those supporting this deceit are accomplices to a grave injustice.