Following the letter by John Hirons, Slaughter Unnecessary In The Name Of Sport (May 3) I cannot but agree more that “the skills already possessed by some of those engaged in shooting or trapping migrating birds” should be put to good use in matters related to ringing birds.
However, any involvement of the hunter or trapper is shunned by Birdlife Malta, who claims the sole official recognition of ringing to the extent that anyone possessing a hunting or trapping licence is precluded from joining their ranks. This “right” is so treasured that a recent incident only proves their exclusion of hunters and trappers from anything scientific as being downright fanatical.
The hunter’s association recently ringed and released a small number of legally trapped birds in order to establish, through re-capture of such birds, the countries related to migration in Malta. Not only were Birdlife Malta not supportive of such an initiative but they instigated a court case against the hunting association, lost it, appealed the sentence and also lost the appeal. So much for Mr Hirons’ father’s dream of a “great success story” that intended to harness all efforts.
Regarding his “sadness and surprise” at the opening of the shooting season for turtle dove and quail, before falling into further depression it might be worth his while to check figures published by the European Commission in its management plans for both these species to discover that eight million of these same birds are shot within the EU, excluding Malta, each and every autumn. Unfortunately Maltese hunters do not have such a possibility since autumn migration is poor to say the least.
This explains why the European Courts ruled in favour of derogation on the basis of a lack of a “satisfactory solution” in autumn and on solid evidence allowed “small numbers” in line with Bird Directive guidelines to be “slaughtered” in line with his perspective of hunting.
If Mr Hirons were conversant or honest about hunting in Malta, he would concur that slaughter is not part of the Maltese hunter’s vocabulary.
It is a word introduced by those who like himself strive to depict Malta’s hunters as an abomination when compared to hunters elsewhere. If a legal derogation permitting hunting of 11,500 birds is any form of slaughter, according to his judgment, what then are the millions of birds, both bred and wild, British hunters have a legal right to hunt each and every year? Both being legal, other than openly writing to support Birdlife Malta, why does one perturb him to the point of writing to the press while he lives with the other on a daily basis?
As to his reference to an 85 per cent decrease in the turtle dove population in the UK and blaming Maltese hunting as a contributing factor, anyone with the slightest knowledge of ornithology knows the population of UK doves differs from that which migrates over Malta.
Bird populations wintering in west Africa and crossing the Iberian flyway eventually reaching the UK are different to those crossing the central Mediterranean Cape Bon flyway.
Also, it is an undisputable fact that the decline of turtle doves in the UK is caused by “modern agricultural practices”.
It is inconceivable for someone who claims to “have discovered, you cannot take the good bits of the EU and its money with one hand and dismiss the inconvenient parts with the other” to actually dismiss the inconvenient part of much welcomed, EU-funded modern agricultural practices and blame totally unrelated factors for a decline in bird numbers that over 40 years have seen no improvement.
Clearly some biased British ornithologists prefer to have large turnips on their plates rather than seeing an increase in their turtle dove populations. Judging by his biased arguments and comments Mr Hirons seems to prefer large turnips as a contribution to his table in the same way we prefer turtle doves.
So before addressing the real problem in his own country, any more of his or his co-nationals’ biased comments in relation to our limited hunting are superfluous.