Birds belong to all the population

Like most environmentalists I was disappointed to see that the spring hunting season opened albeit for a week.

After two springs of relative peace and quiet during which we enjoyed the singing of all kinds of birds, we were regaled with this unpleasant surprise.

If it was wrong for hunters to shoot birds carrying their eggs in spring it still is wrong for hunting to be carried out even for a short spell in April this year.

Our bunch of hunters still have to learn that birds visiting our islands are there for all the population and tourists to enjoy and this enjoyment should not be spoilt by the massacre of thousands of birds.

Visiting birds, like our monuments and our roads, are the property of all Maltese and should be treated as such. Imagine what would happen to anyone defacing one of our monuments or digging up capriciously a stretch of our roads. One would be sent to jail. So what is the difference?

The hunters are moaning that some hunters are encountering psychological problems. I am not surprised. A hunter who leaves his warm bed at three in the morning to freeze in his shooting post an hour later in order to shoot these poor birds should have his head examined.

Hunters should keep in mind that they are shooting exhausted birds which have flown non-stop for at least 200 miles. But most of all they should remember that these birds belong to all of us and to the other Europeans.

I dream of the time when we will be able to see parrots in our trees as there are in Sardinia.