The spring hunting season starts today but Mark Mifsud Bonnici will not be able to shoot because he still has to collect the yellow armband hunters are legally obliged to wear while in the field.
It is in your blood and when the season did not open it felt bad
It is not as if Mr Mifsud Bonnici has lost his enthusiasm for hunting, a pastime passed down through generations in his family. He hunts with a 1905 shotgun first used by his grandfather.
Mr Mifsud Bonnici is one of about 6,000 hunters who paid €50 for the special spring hunting licence but when the postman delivered the yellow armband nobody was home to sign for it.
“I now have to queue at the post office to collect it,” he said yesterday, expressing disappointment at the restrictions imposed on hunters and the government’s delay in announcing the dates for the spring hunting season.
On the hunting federation’s online forum, the delivery of the yellow armband by post was the subject of an intense exchange as hunters in different localities reported whether theirs had arrived or not.
Mr Mifsud Bonnici’s friend had to be present for the interview with The Times but he could not leave work early, given yesterday was his last day before going out on leave. Obtaining leave was not easy after the government’s last minute decision to announce the season dates.
Describing this as “unnecessary torture”, Mr Mifsud Bonnici said many people he knew did not apply for the special licence because they could not book leave. “Why did the government have to leave it so late in the day to publish the legal notice?”
Representing the Kaċċaturi San Ubertu, a small hunting organisation, Mr Mifsud Bonnici is unlike the typical rough-looking hunter. He is the hunting lobby’s moderate face.
Admitting that the illegal actions of a few hunters shamed the rest of the community, he insisted the negative perception was also fuelled by BirdLife Malta’s incessant anti-hunting lobbying.
What hunters were doing was legal, he added, shrugging off the notion they were criminals. “Not all hunters should be tarred with the same brush just like not all drivers should be blamed for the illegalities committed by the few.”
Disassembling the shotgun, he reminisced about how his passion for hunting sparked off early in life. At four years of age he accompanied his grandfather while hunting. “It is in your blood and when the season did not open it felt bad. It’s like falling in love with someone and something goes bad.”
This year, the government allowed 11,000 turtle doves and 5,000 quails to be shot but Mr Mifsud Bonnici insisted the quotas were arbitrarily set and much more stringent than what EU law permitted.
According to the hunting lobby’s scientific calculation – based on one per cent of the species’ mortality rate – hunters should be able to shoot a maximum of 120,000 quails and 72,000 turtle doves. Across Europe, some eight million quails and turtle doves were hunted every year, he said, adding both species were not endangered.
He also took umbrage at the individual daily bag limit of two birds and the seasonal quota of four birds imposed on every hunter, describing them as impractical and unnecessary given there was already a national quota.
“In a hunting career that spans more than four decades, the most I ever caught in a two-month-long season is 32 birds,” he said.
I always eat the birds I shoot... but it makes no sense to invite friends to eat four birds
But the new stringent rules and the trepidation whether the spring hunting season would open have stifled “the thrill of the hunt”, he noted.
“Before, when we knew the exact dates of the season we used to start preparing weeks in advance. We used to clear the passageways in the countryside, prepare the fields and plant shrubs that could attract birds. Today, much of this has gone and the neglect is also noticeable in the countryside.”
Mr Mifsud Bonnici believes the government has tried to reach a balance between hunters and people who like to enjoy the countryside but the solution to impose a restricted national quota and drastically reducing the hunting season has left hunters frustrated.
In the past, when no limits were imposed Mr Mifsud Bonnici used to invite his friends over to eat the season’s catch. However, under the new rules it would take some five years to have enough birds to feed three people.
“I always eat the birds I shoot because game is healthy meat but it makes no sense to invite friends to eat four birds,” he said with a smile that hid the sense of frustration evident in the hunting community.
Mr Mifsud Bonnici is hopeful that one day the hunting community will successfully persuade the government to ease the restrictions while remaining within the confines of EU law. “It is possible.”
Whether it will happen is another matter altogether.
ksansone@timesofmalta.com