The hunters/conservationists speak out

Are the authorities mad? No really, are they totally out of their collective trees? Just 18 daysto conserve as many quail,turtle-doves and whatever else happens to slip into our sights and fall from the sky? Totally ridiculous!

Eighteen days? It takes me longer than that to take my over-and-under, pump action, automatic shotgun out of its case. And anyway, how many avian species can you render extinct in just 18 days?

And what’s all this I read about us hunters – ahem, conservationists – having to send an SMS text message every time we conserve a bird. They have got to be joking! I’ve only just learned how to make a phone call on my mobile… I am still far from mastering the mystic art oftexting.

And who is it we are supposed to text? The quail or ħamiem breed society? The Attorney General? Santa Claus? Richard Cachia Caruana? No really, it’s all just too silly for words.

When I – and the majority of my fellow conservationists – heard that the EU had granted Malta a special dispensation – derogation, whatever – to give their blessing to the wholesale conservation of any avian species, we immediately thought: oh goody, that means we can blast away unsupervised or uncontrolled to our heart’s content from January to December (well that incorporates spring does it not?), conserving as many quail, turtle doves, golden orioles, herons, kestrels as we like.

But what do we discover? Our lily-livered, useless government tells us we only have permission to set up an aerial blitzkrieg for 18 days! Unbelievable!

And here’s another ludicrous thing: apparently – according to the directive – during this ridiculously short conserving window we can only blast away at turtle doves and quail. What about all the other flying ‘game’ we enjoy dropping?

It gets worse. Now they tell us that those avian terrorists, known locally as Birdliving or something, are setting up some sort of monitoring force to run a check on we conservationists. How scandalous is that?

Speaking personally, if I happen to see one of that scabby lot anywhere near my girna… I’ll simply add him to my collection of ‘conserved’ species in myvetrina, x’affarijiet dawn!

Honestly, you’d think after all the trouble we’ve been through – first derogation, then no derogation – plus all the mindlessviolence we had to suffer during our peaceful Valletta protest, from a veritable army – yes, army – of media thugs, anarchists and so-called animal ‘lovers’.

You’d think the government would be bending over backwards to give us even a soupcan of comfort. But no chance… They are as intransigent as ever and tell us: “You get 18 days slaughter – I mean conserving time u daqshekk!”

And far from facilitating our sincere conservation efforts, they have put yet another obstacle in our way by appointing even more hardened anti-conservation irregulars called ‘green wardens’. These people really do need to get a life.

Hunting – sorry, conservation – is our hobby and – whatever they say and whatever obstacles they put in our way, we will never give up our hobby. Further, if these repressive jobsworths in the government don’t back down and give us what is our due, they know that come the next election they will all be returning to their law offices and surgeries. I’m not threatening… just promising.

But if you want the final indignity, the last straw: they tell us that during this paltry 18 days, we are only allowed to conserve a grand total of 11,500 birds. Now get this: we are further informed that there are 6,000 registered conservers.

What about the unregistered ones? I mean, do you have a government hunting permit? No, neither do I.

But let us say for argument’s sake there are another 6,000 unregistered armed conservationists, bringing the total to 12,000 (and I’m damn sure there are probably double that number). That would mean we wouldn’t even have one bird each to conserve.

The government should do us all a favour and keep its nose out of something that doesn’t concern it. Conservationists rule OK!