Hunting groups walked out of an Ornis committee meeting on Tuesday in protest at Birdlife’s proposal for changing the system of reporting bird kills being discussed.
Birdlife is proposing that shot turtle doves and quails should be marked with unique numbered tags to make it easier to verify how many were killed.
The Hunters’ Federation (FKNK) and St Hubert Hunters (KSU) objected to the proposal being placed on the meeting’s agenda because Birdlife refused to withdraw its request for the resignation of committee chairman Louis Cilia.
They were also irked that Birdlife had not attended meetings for nearly a year.
Birdlife called for Mr Cilia’s resignation last March, accusing him of sending his proposals for an extended 2012 spring hunting and trapping season just two days before the Ornis meeting, leaving scant time for consideration. The conservation NGO had boycotted every meeting of the committee, which discusses hunting and trapping controls and coordinates the record of bird kills.
Government-appointed hunting and trapping expert Henry Fenech Azzopardi also left Tuesday’s meeting in protest at Birdlife’s proposal being discussed.
The remaining members agreed that the Environment Protection Directorate would meet separately with Birdlife to discuss its proposal. The FKNK described the proposal as “an attempt to abolish the hunting of the turtle dove and quail in spring 2014”.
In response, Birdlife said the state-ment unwittingly revealed that the FKNK feared the enforced accurate reporting of autumn hunting bag figures would result in the end of spring hunting derogations, which depended on autumn bag counts being below 21,000.
Birdlife said it attended the Ornis meeting because, after two years of proposing improvements to the carnet de chasse system, it was finally put on the agenda for discussion.
“Instead of making sure we have an improved system, and further to their incitement to misreporting hunting bags last year, the FKNK continue to oppose any measure to improve enforcement and the accurate recording of autumn hunting bags,” a Birdlife spokesman said.