Football and wild birds

Birdlife Malta's partners, the Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society (MME), displayed a banner in the recent Malta versus Hungary football match bearing the caption 'Stop the killing of wild birds in Malta'.

The irony of such intentional defamatory propaganda is that this 'killing' of wild birds referred to in the banner is permissible under Annex 2 of the EU Birds Directive and is also very popular in Hungary. In fact, 54,500 Hungarian hunters hunt these same birds.

So what exactly are the Hungarian partners of Birdlife Malta trying to convey? If anything, unlike Malta, the 'killing' of wild birds in Hungary is a very lucrative business. Hunting tourism happens to be a major source of income for the Hungarian economy.

The MME are reported to have staged this stunt as a message to all "the reckless poachers in Malta who damage our common European natural heritage" and "in order to highlight the issue of illegal hunting in Malta". (The Sunday Times, April 5).

Apart from the banner making no reference to illegal hunting but to wild birds in general, the issue of illegal hunting in Hungary seems to be quite similar to the situation reported by Birdlife in Malta.

This extract taken from the World Wildlife Fund site regarding illegal hunting in Hungary, shows that the MME had more in mind than highlighting illegal hunting:

"WWF Hungary launched its bird protection programme called 'Bird Crime' aiming at prevention of illegal hunting and trade, which have recently been increasing. The objective of the programme is to stop the killing and trade in protected birds.

In most cases, illegal hunting concerns protected birds, often shot in the area of national parks, ignoring the hunting season and the list of species that may be hunted. One of the most serious cases in recent years was when customs officers halted a freezer truck with 11,600 shot birds. In many cases illegal hunters use prohibited techniques, attracting songbirds with decoys and calls. Some unscrupulous hunters can destroy decades of work by conservationists through killing off the majority of the bird population in a given area and frightening them off their traditional migration routes."

Illegal hunting in Malta, which according to Birdlife is considered harmful to the tourist industry, is being tackled in the most severe manner by the government. The same cannot be said for the way the government has, over the years, ignored the sabotaging of travel fairs, airline boycotts, freezing of EU funds, tourist boycotts and blatant bad publicity, of which this case is a perfect example.

Can the government honestly continue to allow Birdlife and its partners to shame in this manner without even lifting a finger?