(Adds hunters' statement)

Maltese hunters kill the chance of at least 190,000 chicks born each spring, the Spring Hunting out campaign (Shout) said today.

TV presenter and animal rights activist Moira Delia and Birdlife Malta trustee Mark Sultana addressed a press conference today saying this was a conservative estimate based on 10,000 registered spring hunters in Malta each shooting a pair of turtle dove and quail.

In addition, Mr Sultana said the spring hunting season acts as a cover for the targeting of rare and protected birds with over 38 protected species being illegally shot in Malta during the last four spring hunting seasons.

The main message of the campaign today was that ‘spring never comes for the hunted’. Turtle dove numbers across Europe had declined by over 80 per cent and over 20 million of these birds disappeared since 1980.

Ms Delia stressed hunters would still have another five months of hunting in autumn if a ban on spring hunting was enforced.  She urged everyone to speak up and make their voice heard in the referendum.

“My grandfather was a hunter. But we cannot continue to steal from future generations, this is why we voters must turn out on April 11 and vote 'no' to end this destruction,” she said.

Mr Sultana said it was arrogant of the FKNK to contradict what prominent legal experts said about the referendum not affecting other hobbies.

“The FKNK just dismissed the advice of experts. It’s an insult to intelligence. Let them get their own legal experts to challenge those arguments rather than issuing blanket statements,” Mr Sultana said.

There were some 15 types of birds that could nest and breed in Malta if spring hunting was banned, the Shout campaign said. These included the barn owl, the common kestrel and the iconic Maltese and peregrine falcons.

Birdlife referred to the disappearance of two greater flamingos from the Ghadira nature reserve last week and insisted the flamingos disappeared following a break-in. The organisation pointed out this was not an isolated incident.

Shout feeding public 'false propaganda' - hunters

In a statement, St Hubert Hunters (KSU) deplored what they said was “false propaganda” being fed to an uniformed public about the impact of spring hunting on turtle dove and quail.

They said the quota negotiated with the European Commission for spring derogation by the previous administration was within the one per cent of the species mortality rate contemplated by the European Birds Directive and was considered sustainable based on the bird’s conservation status and population figures.

The global populations of these two species as calculated by Birdlife International, KSU said, was that of up to 100 million turtle doves of which 25 to 40 per cent formed part of the European population.

The quail was even more numerous with up to 300 million individuals of which five to 24 per cent were in Europe.