Spring hunting is on

In a perfect case of wishful thinking, the director of BirdLife Malta, Tolga Temuge, wants us to make believe that the ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules out a derogation allowing spring hunting. Clearly Mr Temuge is trying to manipulate the truth, a common habit with the BirdLife Malta clan. He writes that the ECJ "clearly found Malta guilty for allowing spring hunting between 2004 and 2007", and purposely fails to add: "without complying with the conditions laid down in Article 9(1) of the Directive".

The hunting lobby's claim that the spring hunting seasons were justified was based on the promises and guarantees in writing given by the government. Mr Temuge writes: The government "went to Brussels". Correction! The government was taken to Brussels because BirdLife Malta and its accomplices had spread untruths, half-truths and exaggerations in the media and the internet about bird numbers taken and protected birds shot. Lamenting over the taxpayers' money the government was forced to spend on the case, Mr Temuge's crocodile tears do not impress anyone in the know. He also failed to add that notwithstanding having lost the case, Malta was not fined a single euro cent by the court (on the eve of the verdict a local daily predicted a fine in seven figures, a scare-mongering tactic as is being used at present by Mr Temuge).

Mr Temuge talks of "defeat" trying to make it look as if the hunters were defeated. Nothing could be further from the truth. The hunters are elated about the way the court proceedings went. The verdict is a complete vindication of what the FKNK and the KSU (St Hubert's Hunters Malta) had been maintaining all along. The court recognised the cardinal principle that autumn hunting is not - we repeat, not - a satisfactory alternative to spring hunting. The hunting organisations have said and documented this repeatedly, and this has now been accepted as the truth by the European Court of Justice. The ECJ verdict is final. It is, therefore, an abomination for Mr Temuge to keep maintaining the contrary. It is an undeniable and unalterable fact that the ECJ decision opens the door for the government to allow limited spring hunting in future. This statement is backed by the government legal counsel, and, more importantly by the European Commission in Brussels.

The exact text of the decision goes thus: "63. Having regard to those very specific circumstances, hunting for quails and turtle doves during the autumn hunting season cannot be regarded as constituting, in Malta, another satisfactory solution, so that the condition that there be no other satisfactory solution, laid down in Article 9(1) of the Directive, should, in principle, be considered met". This is the essence of the ECJ ruling. Had the court thrown out the argument that autumn hunting was not a satisfactory alternative, the case would have ended there, and the court would not have proceeded to consider the other requirements of the Birds Directive. It is the same court that had in fact concluded in the Austria and Finland cases that these countries do have an alternative in autumn to their spring hunting. Notwithstanding such verdicts both countries still permit hunting in spring to date by the application of correct derogations. So Mr Temuge should stop making incorrect statements such as spring hunting is not allowed in any EU Member State, considering himself to be some authority in Malta that all others should listen to and believe.

Mr Temuge labours the point about the figures of birds shot. He forgot that BirdLife Malta refused to participate in a data-collecting exercise by a foreign scientific institute commissioned by the Maltese government in order to arrive at a realistic figure of bird-migration. Perhaps he expected the government to dish out to the ECJ the astronomically wild figures dreamt up by BirdLife of three million birds taken annually (La Repubblica 18-01-2008). Being afraid of the truth, BirdLife did not participate in the exercise for fear their lies would be exposed. Instead they rubbished the government-commissioned study. If the data regarding the birds shot in autumn and spring presented to the ECJ was not exact, it was at least the closest to reality one could expect. Following the ECJ decision, there is now all the more reason to have the data-collecting process updated. The ECJ accepted the hunters' data of harvested birds because this is the best available data for the simple reason that strictly speaking such data can be evidenced by the caught birds, whereas reports of observations cannot.

The government opened the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 seasons because, prior to the EU entry vote, it had committed itself with the hunting community to do so. Now it is under bigger pressure to allow spring hunting - albeit curtailed - because the ECJ has ruled that autumn is not a satisfactory alternative. Article 56 of the ECJ ruling points out: "The Community legislature... sought to permit derogations from that provision, only so far as necessary, where hunting opportunities during those periods, in the present case in the autumn, are so limited as to upset the balance sought by the Directive between the protection of species and certain leisure activities". Especially now that it has the ECJ's backing, the government must honour its promises and guarantees given in writing to every registered hunter, provided it keeps a balance between protection of the species and hunters' rights.

The accent has to be on a shorter hunting period, the establishment of bag limits, and stricter controls. The role players are the government, the police and the hunters' representatives. They will need to come up with the necessary solutions. Mr Temuge's assertions about danger to the public, the "right" to roam freely in the countryside and damage to the environment have nothing whatsoever to do with the ECJ ruling. These matters affect land use in general and do not pertain exclusively to spring hunting.

The final reality is that the ECJ ruling of September 10, 2009 allows Maltese hunters to retain limited traditional spring hunting. No amount of misinformation from BirdLife Malta's director is going to change that. Neither should the BirdLife International and BirdLife Malta complaint, sent to the Commission following the ECJ verdict, change anything. The sooner Mr Temuge and his friends in Brussels and wherever acknowledge the new reality, the better it will be for their credibility.

Mr Farrugia is secretary, Federation for Hunting and Conservation - Malta (FKNK).