James Walker’s letter (‘Let them fly’, July 12), epitomises ignorance on the subject matter and goes well beyond the ridiculous.
With 800,000 ‘bird killers’ in the UK, an estimated 23,000,000 birds shot each year and a year-long period to shoot birds, he has the cheek to state “we feed them to help them survive. In Malta, you shoot them to help them die”.
Clearly, he also has no idea that, in Malta, we only shoot tens out of some of the hundreds of thousands of birds shot in the UK. We both do this legally, incidentally, with a shotgun and not a “rifle” as he states, to the dismay of people like him who consider it a “vile sport”.
Having seen a film “about men shooting small birds on Malta”, investigated by a journalist he would rather not name, he fails to mention that not even a single bird being shot was featured in this film.
Though reportedly this journalist was intent on filming “millions”, all he could do was blabber his anti-hunting nonsense. Indeed, Chris Packham is synonymous with preaching such nonsense to the gullible breed Walker belongs to.
He has already been warned by the BBC about his use of social media and is currently under investigation by the BBC Trust for further breaches of the guidelines on campaigning.
His reference to the “English journalist” getting “too close to a group of these ‘men’ (loud-mouthed thugs would be more accurate)” and eventually held for police questioning applies to anyone who has the impertinence to trespass, more so when repeatedly warned. Surely he recognises the same would happen to any fool in the UK intent on causing controversy. But, then again, Walker probably disagrees with hunt saboteur’s provocation being investigated by the UK police and gladly lobbies for their cause in the same way he does for Packham’s.
Being absolutely oblivious to anything Maltese, other than the George Cross and Packham’s gibberish, he is unaware of Malta’s gold medals in clay pigeon shooting when asking: “Have these men never heard of clay pigeon shooting or has that never reached Malta?”
In all his wisdom, Walker considers us “too ignorant to understand that what they are doing is an evil affront to nature” and concludes that we “can’t get much lower than that”.
Hurling insults seems to be his specialty since his unimpressive hogwash serves no purpose other than to typify the rudeness of his sort.