What criticism of the ECJ decision? (1)

Mark Mifsud Bonnici, secretary of San Ubertu Hunters, once again made several unfounded allegations about BirdLife Malta (September 24).

BirdLife Malta did not criticise the ECJ ruling on Malta's spring hunting case as claimed by Mr Mifsud Bonnici. On the contrary, BirdLife International and BirdLife Malta in a joint statement on September 10 welcomed the ruling and stated the following: "As a consequence, BirdLife concludes spring hunting has to end permanently. Hunting in autumn can continue for these (turtle dove and quail) and 30 other species in Malta, under certain conditions laid out in the EU Birds Directive".

Furthermore, the ECJ did not rule that "future derogation for spring hunting is possible under specific conditions" as wrongly claimed by Mr Mifsud Bonnici. Any member state can apply derogations as long as they meet the conditions set by the Birds Directive. For years the hunting lobby claimed that the derogation applied by the Maltese government between 2004 and 2007 was justified but, when the ECJ ruled otherwise, they changed direction and now claim that a "limited" hunting season in spring would be possible.

The fact is, should Malta apply another derogation for spring hunting, which clearly cannot comply with the set of conditions set out in article nine of the Birds Directive, the chances of Maltese taxpayers bearing the brunt of hefty penalties this time is real. Spring hunting is over and Maltese hunters should learn to live with this reality as their fellow hunters in all other EU states did.

Mr Mifsud Bonnici also wrongly claimed that, in 2003, BirdLife Malta had agreed to a derogation. This is absolutely untrue and he must provide unequivocal evidence in the form of documents signed by BirdLife that we agreed to spring hunting. Otherwise, we expect him to apologise to readers and to BirdLife Malta.

His reference to the so called "government study" on turtle dove and quail is amusing at best. The chairman of the Maltese Ornis committee, to which BirdLife is party, informed its members that this study has not been concluded. Therefore, it could not be part of Malta's defence in Brussels nor could Mr Mifsud Bonnici have any idea about its conclusions. If he has information that Ornis committee members do not have, we demand that he shares this information and also name its source.

Secondly, the study he refers to was not only rubbished by BirdLife but also by one of the UK's biggest scientific ornithological societies, the BTO. The "study" had three coordinators who were hired after the previous one abandoned it. The most recent information we have about the "study" was that the hunters who were "counting" the birds were also shooting the birds at the same time. This was raised during an Ornis meeting. This is the "study" Mr Mifsud Bonnici is talking about.

Mr Mifsud Bonnici referred to the carnet de chasse (data filed by the hunters based on the number of birds they shoot) and stated the following on March 12, 2008: "How could the 'hunters' bag counts' constitute scientific evidence? The Maltese carnets de chasse are worthless, since their validity as scientific evidence depends on their being monitored on a daily basis during the open season by environment wardens. This was never done.

"Hunters fill them in only because handing them in is a pre-condition for licence renewal. They have no scientific value and the European Court of Justice will note that".

We thank him for making at least one true observation.