The hunting federation is looking for a tenfold increase in the annual number of birds that can be shot, as it piles on the pressure for concessions to be granted ahead of the looming general election.
“We think the current annual limit of 20,000 turtle doves and quails is absurd and is based on the wrong scientific data,” FKNK president Joe Perici Calasione told a news conference yesterday.
“According to our workings, the limit should be 200,000, which includes 125,000 turtle doves and some 79,000 quails.”
However, Mr Perici Calascione said this was not an electoral proposal. His organisation was asking the authorities to revise the hunting laws, particularly in connection with the number of birds that can be shot.
He was speaking at a press event – ahead of a lunch based on a menu of quail – held to mark the third anniversary of the EU decision to allow a “limited” spring hunting season in Malta.
In 2009 the European Court of Justice found that Malta had breached the Birds Directive between 2004 and 2007 by allowing a fully-fledged spring hunting season. However, it conceded that Malta could allow a “limited” season in spring, following which the Government enacted framework legislation to regulate hunting in line with the ECJ’s decision.
One of the provisions caps the number of birds to be shot annually at 20,000 turtle doves and quails.
The FKNK argues that, despite scientific data about bird populations and migration patterns forwarded to the Government over the years, Malta has not budged from these numbers, which are “based on the wrong information”.
Asked whether the Government was deliberately insisting on conservative bag numbers, Mr Perici Calascione said it wanted to “look good with the European Commission” and was “bowing to pressure from Birdlife and international ornithological lobby groups”.
In 2010, when the Government was drafting the current laws, Brussels had objected to the possibility of a three-week hunting season in spring and a limited bag of 25,000 turtle doves and quails.
Threatened by legal action from the European Commission, the Government had to significantly scale down its proposals and they were then accepted by Brussels.
Mr Perici Calascione yesterday said his organisation was also after other changes, including time limitations related to hunting in autumn and allowing trapping in both spring and autumn.
“Despite the criticism against us, we will never give up on what is ours by right,” he charged.