More than 6,000 signatures in favour of a spring hunting referendum were collected in a matter of days after outrage was sparked by the shooting of several eagles last month.
On Saturday, the Coalition for the Abolition of Spring Hunting announced that more than 20,000 signatures had been collected so far in its quest to force a referendum on this highly controversial issue. By law the minimum number of signatures needed is 10 per cent of the number of voters, roughly 35,000.
Coalition spokesman Rodolfo Ragonesi said yesterday that while the coalition had high hopes for the petition at the start of the campaign, they were surprised at the surge.
“In just a few days following the nationwide anger caused by the barbaric slaughter of so many eagles a couple of weeks ago, more than 6,000 signatures were collected,” he said.
These crimes, he added, reminded people of the urgency to claim their right to vote to abolish spring hunting and mobilised them to act. In the drive to collect the remaining 15,000 signatures, increased information would be a key part of the strategy, he said, citing “a lot of misinformation” being circulated by the hunting lobby to counter the campaign.
The impression that Malta and the hunters had won the European court case in favour of spring hunting, for example, was a “ludicrous statement” aimed at confusing people.
Dr Ragonesi said that the judgment declared all spring hunting seasons from 2003 to 2008 to be illegal.
“It did not create any case law whatsoever to indicate that other hunting seasons would not also be declared illegal,” he said, adding that this was a total twisting of the facts by the hunting lobby. The right to abolish spring hunting was a basic principle of democracy set out in Malta’s Referenda Act.
Dr Ragonesi argued that no justice for birds could ever be secured so long as hunters themselves – who had an obvious conflict of interest – were the ones gathering the data to determine whether the practice was sustain-able or not.
“Expecting the rest of us to believe that this procedure adopted in 2008 is a reasonable one, to effectively control hunting, is an insult to our intelligence.”
Another argument being put forward by the coalition is that a derogation from EU regulations can only be based upon necessities relating to health, air safety, ecological control, scientific studies and other judicious use of birds.
Killing birds as a sport could never be justified under any of these criteria.
Despite this misinformation, the public response had been very good, said Dr Ragonesi, expressing optimism that support would continue to grow.