The Federation for Hunting and Conservation yesterday said it would embark on a “different course of action” over the government’s attempts to “gradually eradicate” hunting and trapping.

The federation did not, however, spell out what that course of action might be.

In a strongly-worded statement, it claimed that the government was “led by the nose by BirdLife Malta” and described the lack of fixed hunting seasons as a “puerile” tactic by the government.

“The unnecessary ban on afternoon hunting in September was never endorsed by the Ornis Committee in its annual recommendations. The government simply ignores Ornis and bows to the demands of BirdLife and the German-based CABS, both of whom want to usurp the Maltese countryside for their extremist ends.”

The criticism comes on the back of the publication of the government’s hunting and trapping policy guidelines, which banned autumn trapping and dismissed the possibility of any derogations being issued for the trapping of quail or turtle doves.

According to the FKNK, the policy guidelines make it clear it is the government’s intention never to permit trapping for the quail and the turtle dove, to always impose the September afternoon ban, to never allow hunting in May and that it was planning further restrictions on Sundays, public holidays and even during school holidays.

Having sent a detailed critique of these guidelines to the government, the opposition and the Ornis Committee, the FKNK was now “constrained to embark on a different course of action” and not “allow any government to remove what rightfully and legally belongs to the Maltese hunters and trappers”.