Martin Scicluna’s opinion on hunters and the Germans (June 12) is a tour de force based on gratuitous assertions, typical of a couch potato.
... majority of Maltese hunters kept within the rule of the spring hunting derogation- David Borg Cardona, Marsascala
For starters, the name Committee Against Bird Slaughter is a misnomer, translated from the German Komittee Gegen Den Vogelmord which translates into “committee against bird murder”, thus showing the extremism of this German group which applies the word mord to birds instead of persons.
By trying to depict a general picture of lawlessness, the German-based campaigning group has again exposed its intolerance of the hard-won right of the Maltese hunters to a limited hunt in spring. The incidents shown on the German video were a string of past incidents, some of which happened as far back as nine years ago. The scenes with the curator of the National History Museum show bird carcasses that have been lying for years in the museum freezers. All these scenes have nothing to do with the Spring 2012 hunting derogation.
The only recent incidents involved merely the discovery of a “massive” trapping site for waders and another trapping site for turtle doves. However, the spring derogation did not allow trapping. This means that the active trapping sites were the work of poachers, not hunters. Such illegal trapping activities can occur irrespective of whether a derogation is in progress or not.
Contrary to what Mr Scicluna wrote, the vast majority of Maltese hunters kept within the rules of the spring hunting derogation. Indeed, the local bird-protection organisation did not think it necessary to mobilise more than two per cent of its manpower to supervise the hunting during the limited derogation period. Anyone out in the countryside could observe for themselves that the conditions of the derogation were on the whole adhered to. Many protected birds, especially harriers, golden orioles and bee-eaters, carried on with their migration unmolested. The “hundreds of offences” referred to by Mr Scicluna narrow down mainly to gunshots heard outside the hunting hours, which in turn could have been shots on clay pigeons, an assumption that cannot be excluded, judging by the lightning tendency of abolitionists to jump to wrong conclusions.
I absolutely disagree with what Mr Scicluna calls “intolerance of justifiable criticism”. The so-called criticism was certainly not justifiable. It was a rehash of old incidents, and the attempt to connect them with the Maltese government’s application of the spring 2012 hunting derogation is downright contemptible. Previously, officials of the German organisation had publicly stated their resolve to have quails and turtledoves removed from the hunting list. The RTL video was their latest despicable attempt to achieve this aim. Rather than highlighting “an ugly side to the Maltese character of xenophobia”, the episode shows that so far the Maltese have kept within the law, and are resorting to the law to uphold their rights. This is a far cry from the underhand tactics adopted by this bunch of fanatics from Germany.
As to Mr Scicluna’s fantasy of “a long-established pattern of Maltese hunters’ behaviour stretching back centuries”, the correspondent would do well to revise his judgment.
A reading of Natalino Fenech’s A Complete Guide to the Birds of Malta should dispel his myopic vision of Maltese hunting history through the centuries.
Mr Scicluna should also get his facts right about German television and the German public. What he terms “Germany’s influential station, RTL” is nothing of the sort. Apart from being a “cheap” station, my German friends tell me that the kind of people who watch RTL are not the kind of tourists Malta needs. The “spitting, snarling, swearing, insulting” incident involved just one man, and it is, therefore, highly unethical of Mr Scicluna to bring all the “Maltese hunters” into the equation. Hunters are essentially Maltese citizens first and foremost. Those who agree with Mr Scicluna’s contention that the majority of Maltese hunters are utterly primitive in their behaviour are simply saying that the majority of Maltese are primitive.
Mr Scicluna is completely off track regarding what this “mature” country should be doing. He should know that the government has gone out of its way to ensure strict compliance with the conditions of the hunting derogation. The opposition, too, is facing up to its responsibilities regarding the hunting issue. The hunters know they have to comply, and they are complying.
What remains is for the German anti-hunting organisation to accept the fact that, based on the ruling of the European Court of Justice of September 10, 2009, Maltese hunters will enjoy a hunting derogation every spring, and that manipulation of facts with the help of all the TV stations in Germany or anywhere else is not going to change that fact.
The EU Birds Directive itself also acknowledges the rights of people of EU member states to their recreation and leisure activities. The continuous attempts by foreign-based extremists to usurp these rights will be resisted to the full. One final note that seems to have also escaped Mr Scicluna’s notice is the fact that the local birding organisation BirdLife Malta distanced itself from the German organisation’s activity which he defended.