Since joining BirdLife Malta in the position of executive director, Steve Micklewright has only transmitted incorrect and biased communications with regard to the local hunting and trapping, the hunters’ federation said.
The FKNK criticised for Mr Micklewright for taking Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat to task, because he stated that he wanted Maltese hunters and trappers to be treated like those in other European states and that where derogations were applicable, Malta would apply them.
It asked whether this meant that Mr Micklewright ‘and his lackeys’ expected that Maltese hunters and trappers should be treated less than their European counterpart EU citizens.
The FKNK said Mr Micklewright deceivably and incorrectly stated that hunters in the Maltese Islands could legally shoot 41 bird species during the five-month autumn hunting season, compared with just 18 wild bird species that could be hunted recreationally during the autumn season in the UK.
It said that wild bird species, including game birds, only made an appearance over the Maltese islands according to natural migration circumstances and depended very much on the prevailing weather conditions.
“Such appearances are completely out of the context of any pre-set manmade autumn season since said species are never met throughout the stated five months, as Mr Micklewright tries to imply, but only for a few weeks for each species, and in most cases none at all.”
The FKNK said that out of the 41 bird species on the legal hunting list, the local current status saw three listed as ‘very common’; another three as ‘common’; 11 as ‘fairly common’; seven as ‘scarce’; six as ‘very scarce’; and two as ‘vagrants’. The other nine species, added in May 2010 as a result of Romania and Bulgaria’s EU membership, were listed as ‘alien’, because these were not to be found occurring naturally in the wild in the Maltese islands.
The FKNK said that in the UK, Mr Micklewright’s home country, 22 bird species could be hunted, 16 of them migratory. Furthermore, seven deer species could also be hunted, as well as other game termed as ground-game.
Moreover, an innumerable number of bird and mammal species could be taken by shooting, destruction of eggs and nests, use of cage-traps and lamping at night.
These species, termed as ‘pests’ included collared doves, wood pigeon and starlings, as well as mink, rabbits and fox. These could be hunted year round.