The inundation of snails and the disappearance of the song thrush in Greater London are being attributed to Maltese hunters.
Beryl Palmier seems to have the solution to such a problem by writing to the Maltese press.
Her letter of February 14 must be the best proof of what the damaging anti-hunting propaganda by the likes of Birdlife Malta has managed to achieve.
Maltese hunters have been depicted as the scourge of European bird life thanks to years of misinformation as part of a concerted effort to rid Malta of its hunters. Why a person residing in Surrey should choose to air her concerns in the local press is no coincidence. Being a member of the RSPB community with connections to Malta, she could not help resist doing her part for the RSPB partners Birdlife Malta. Her letter adds more to the endless list of nonsense written by foreigners targeted at influencing public opinion against Maltese hunters.
Rather than declaring the undisputed reason for the decline of the song thrush and all other farmland birds, which, throughout Europe, is most evident in the UK thanks to bad agricultural practices (www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/urban/ecorecord/bap/acrobat/thrush.pdf), she prefers to blame the 5,000 birds shot in Malta as being reason for concern.
Considering the European population of the song thrush, according to Birdlife International data, amounts to between 60,000,000 and 108,000,000, with an estimated 216,000,000 globally, the fact that Palmier has not seen one in her garden for “six years or more” speaks volumes. She definitely states nonsense and, considering the total of song thrush hunted throughout Europe is estimated as being about 15,000,000, how does Malta’s 5,000 affect those disappearing from her back garden?
Just to tweak her obvious lack of ornithological facts, a report on the effects of the hunting of song thrush in Europe ( http://www.eounion.org/pdf/v31/AS-3-1-Payevsky%20&%20Vysotsky.pdf ) states: “Most British thrushes remain on the islands all year round and only some birds from southern England migrate to France and Spain (Ashmole 1962, Cramp 1988).”
So will Palmier be replying to correct her biased, ridiculous accusation or is she content to have played her part to tarnish Maltese hunters?