I was recently in Malta for a holiday with a friend and we decided to visit Gozo. Expecting nothing but coastal walks, amazing nature, maybe a swim and kind smiles, we arrived in Xlendi in the afternoon.

Everything was calm and beautiful until the peace was disturbed by a lot of gun shots. It turned out that we were in the bird hunting season. The next day we walked to the amazing Azure Window near Dwejra Bay.

I collected at least 30 to 40 used cartridges on the official walking path and threw them out in various bins along the way, thinking to myself: What is going on here?

During our last few hours in Xlendi, we decided to take a little coastal walk towards Mġarr.

Walking along the coastal path, we may have come up a little higher in the terrain than we were supposed to and somehow got into what turned out to be a private path – dotted with cages with small birds inside.

I took some pictures of the birdcages. Suddenly two hunters came running towards us screaming and yelling obscenities and claiming it was “private property” and that it was prohibited to take pictures.

When I asked why, they again swore at us and waved us angrily away. One of the hunters got really upset about the camera and threw a large stone at me (which fortunately didn’t hit). I almost fell trying to get away from the angry bird hunters and hurt my ankle in the process.

I had to catch a flight back to Denmark a few hours later and didn’t have time to report the incident to the police but I did decide to write to the Minister of Tourism when I returned home. I have not received an answer yet.

When I arrived in Malta, I had no idea that hunting and trapping were such huge problems.

I wasn’t aware that Danish ornithologists come to Malta during the migratory bird season in order to try to save our birds on their long journey to Africa.

These are the same birds that we do so much to protect in the north! And then they are shot, trapped and wounded in Malta? What are these hunters thinking about? There is absolutely no reason to allow bird hunting at all!

When this problem is solved, I will return to Malta – because I am sad to say that I can’t recommend your beautiful country to anybody at this given moment.