Hunting illegalities are not widespread

The statement by BirdLife Malta’s outgoing executive director Tolga Temuge reported in the article entitled BirdLife Reports Widespread Killing Of Protected Birds (October 18) is laughable, to say the least.

On the basis of there being about 12,000 licensed shooters who can legally shoot over 30 bird species, Mr Temuge thinks that the disproportion between the huntable species and protected species received at BLM’s office “suggests that protected birds continue to be prized targets in Malta”.

Apparently unaware that hunters retrieve and eat all the game birds they shoot, Mr Temuge expects to receive more birds of the huntable species than the protected ones, if not the same number.

His expectation cannot be more absurd. If BirdLife receives disproportionately few huntable birds, the logical conclusion should be that the vast majority of hunters do observe the law, and in fact retrieve and eat the birds they shoot. If protected birds were really “prized targets”, BLM would receive even less of them at its office.

BLM claims that “millions of birds” are shot in Malta on migration. Yet, the birding organisation received only a few shot birds from protected species. This suggests that the problem, though deplorable, is minimal, and hunting illegalities are certainly not widespread or rampant. In an attempt to discredit the hunter’s federation, but lacking hard evidence, BLM recently resorted to searching for dead protected birds. Incredibly they only “found” such birds in the Miżieb hunting reserve managed by the hunters’ federation which, by pure coincidence, they have coveted for years. Considering the hundreds of carcasses “discovered” in the small area they searched, they seem more talented at scenting dead birds than all the dogs of the Miżieb hunters put together. No wonder the police seem undecided on what conclusions to draw from their investigations of the “crime scene”!

No matter how hard BLM tries to depict Malta’s hunters as criminals, the reality is that only a minority of shotgun-licence holders flout the law, and this minority keeps getting smaller with every law-enforcement action.

The “iceberg” of illegalities which BLM continually alludes to has sunk deeper but its hallucinatory tip keeps confusing its management to the point of resorting to absurdities.