A group of Maltese youths aged between 18 and 25 gathered at Valletta’s City Gate yesterday to urge young people not to be indifferent to the spring hunting referendum and to vote for a better and greener Malta.

“While other countries strive to conserve and protect birds, Malta is the only country in Europe to apply a derogation (exemption) to allow spring hunting,” Steve Zammit Lupi, 19, said.

“We are children of the 1990s – turtle doves had already been in fast decline by the time we were born. From the 1980s onwards, three out of every four turtle doves have been wiped out.”

The decline of turtle doves, he continued, was down to three reasons: climate change, their natural habitat’s destruction and intensive hunting practices. In Germany and the UK, where hunting is widely practised, the turtle dove is protected both in spring as well as in autumn.

“Although Malta has favourable conditions for the turtle dove to breed, here they do not breed as they do in other countries because we insist on killing them.

“Interestingly, quail hunting is carried out using such an electronic device which emits the sound of a quail’s call throughout the night. Such bird callers are illegal to use in the countryside but they are still widely used.

Gozitan student Beppe Galea, 18, said he will be exercising his first ever right to vote against spring hunting because he believed that the environment should be given priority.

The youths were joined by activists from various youth organisations, including Youth 4 the Environment, Greenhouse Malta and Birdlife Falco.