In order to “fight illegal hunting activity”, Henry Fenech Azzopardi (November 1) sees nothing wrong in Birdlife Malta inviting hunting organisations to join them.
Understandably, protected bird species can never be considered legal to hunt and in a rational world one would expect the legal hunter and the bird protectionist to work hand in hand to eradicate any abuse in this respect. However, when dealing with bird protectionists that even consider legal hunting as illegal, this dream can unfortunately never materialise.
Fenech Azzopardi surely knows about the legality of spring hunting. He also knows that spring hunting for two huntable species is an EU-endorsed concession given to Malta due to an ornithological fact which Birdlife Malta should be the first to confirm.
Yet, ever since the spring hunting judgment, which Birdlife International had agreed to respect, its Maltese partners have done exactly the opposite.
Little does Birdlife Malta care for Malta’s legal hunters who can only get their fair share of the millions of the same two species hunted in autumn by their European counterparts during spring.
What they once termed illegal has now, after clear statements by European Union statesmen, been proved undoubtedly legal. However, rather than respecting the European Court’s verdict, successive governments that passed EU-approved legislation and the hunters that legally exercise their right to derogation, Birdlife Malta, seeing its possibility for a ban on spring hunting, after some hesitation is now at the forefront of a
movement intent on banning legal spring hunting.
If Fenech Azzopardi considers involvement with Birdlife Malta as a good idea, he should set the example this spring season.
Perhaps between collecting signatures for the referendum, “recording data on the intensity of hunting” and “recording the impact of intensive hunting on migrating turtle dove and quail to demonstrate the negative impact of these activities”, Birdlife Malta might manage to find some time to accommodate him.
Their invitation is still open.