The outgoing German Ambassador, if for no other reason, will be remembered for his impertinent lecturing to the Maltese public on hunting.
His last attempt to discredit Maltese hunters as a different breed is a whole eulogy on the difficulties to obtain a hunting licence and the related exorbitant expenses. Perhaps Hubert Ziegler, in all his wisdom, might wish to explain, considering all these difficulties where “the strict laws in place in Germany separate the wheat from the chaff”, the following extract describing German hunting and hunting laws: “German hunting legislation dates back to the 1930s (Hermann Goering was Chief Huntsman of the Third Reich) and has never been thoroughly amended. To date, there has been no place for modern ecological knowledge in the ramshackle Federal Hunting Law. German hunters indulge in both shooting of migrant birds and setting of cruel traps. Hunting is permitted in most nature reserves, birds are shot legally during the breeding season and special generous exceptions are made for shooting of protected species such as grey heron, cormorant and corvids. The trapping, poisoning and shooting of protected species – above all birds of prey – is still widespread in parts of Germany and, unique for Europe, there is no functioning control organ.”
In his last article of May 27, the ambassador, said that “an argument made by passionate Maltese hunters in recent weeks was that hunting was also a problem in Germany because hunters there were allegedly also shooting everything coming their way. Maltese hunters were, however, misleading the public here by comparing Malta and Germany”.
Contrary to his statement, the reference to the ramshackle situation of hunting in Germany is not a Maltese misleading allegation. It is a quote about hunting in Germany taken from the German organisation Komitee gegen den Vogelmord e.V. better known locally to us as CABS www.komitee.de/en/projects/germany/hunting-germany.
If indeed he would like to hear more of the same from CABS that further discredits his argument, perhaps he can also fathom this: “Unlike other EU states, there is a widespread lack of hunting controls in Germany. The maxim here is self-control. In many hunting reserves shooting of raptors, poisoning of ‘predators’ and other offences against hunting and nature protection legislation is therefore the order of the day.”
For a person who even expressed “support for the work of CABS in exposing illegalities”, we are indeed surprised that his own writing discredits CABS and gives credit to the Maltese hunters’ evaluation of all their reported nonsense.
Considering the ambassador’s tenure soon ends, is his last article intended to glorify German hunters before he returns to Germany or is it an eye-opener for all who blindly believe all that CABS assert about hunting illegalities?