Hunters and conservationists had their feathers ruffled at a debate on the proposed referendum to abolish spring hunting yesterday.
The talks were characterised by a series of loud jeers and insults from the cluster of hunters that dominated the audience.
Organised by the University Student Council, the debate focused on whether a referendum would impinge on hunters’ rights, and saw Birdlife officials go head-to-head with hunters’ federation FKNK over the contentious spring hunting season.
The abrogative referendum is being proposed by a coalition of 12 lobby groups and has so far collected 25,000 signatures – 10,000 short of the 10 per cent of the electorate needed to force a vote.
Once collected, the signatures will be verified by the constitutional court and a referendum date will be set by the president within six months. Asked why the coalition had proposed the referendum, Birdlife executive director Steve Micklewright said the hunting lobby had strong-armed successive governments into allowing a practice which the majority of Maltese disagreed with.
He insisted that decades of inaction meant that a referendum was the only way society could have its voice heard on the matter.
“Hunters have bullied the political parties, using their voting power as a threat. If the political parties can’t handle the issue then the people should decide,” he said, adding that it was fundamentally undemocratic for parties to make deals with lobby groups.
Parliamentary Secretary for Animals Rights Roderick Galdes and Opposition Spokesman Charlo’ Bonnici both vehemently denied having struck any deals with the hunting lobby.
If political parties can’t handle the issue then the people should decide
Asked whether the government would support a referendum on spring hunting, Mr Galdes skirted the issue. Mr Bonnici said the PN would support all forms of direct democracy.
FKNK secretary Lino Farrugia argued that the spring hunting referendum would lead to the outright abolition of hunting.
“This referendum will be the first of many if it goes through. This is being done to remove all hunting practices in Malta,” he said, prompting loud calls of “Birdlife, bird lies” from the hunting contingent in the audience.
Mark Mifsud Bonnici of the St Hubert Hunting Association insisted that the application of derogations to allow spring hunting was a right given to all member states.
On the other hand, coalition spokesman Rudolph Ragonesi described the government data collection method as “systematically flawed”.
“We have a process of collecting information where people with biases are collecting vital figures. This information is then used to inform the European Commission on the situation,” he said.
Picking up on the issue, a Birdlife spokesman referred to a bulletin from the FKNK to its members last year. The federation had instructed hunters to beware of reporting all catches as this would result in the early closing of the season.
Prof. Ragonesi insisted this was tantamount to eliciting fraudulent behaviour.
“This is encouraging a crime, it’s just absurd,” he told the debate, moderated by former TV journalist Norman Vella.
A graph compiled by the NGO showed a surge in text message catch reports on the last day of last spring’s hunting season.
The debate eventually degenerated into an argument, with a number of personal attacks against Mr Micklewright. Mr Mifsud Bonnici described the Birdlife chief as a “nobody who came to Malta to be somebody”.