Legal advice is being sought by the hunters' federation to see what action could be taken against the "discriminatory" decision of the government to open a very limited hunting season.
"I cannot give details yet because nothing is confirmed. But we feel our civil rights are being denied," FKNK secretary Lino Farrugia said, when asked to explain what action was being considered if the federation's demands were not met.
On Monday, the FKNK called for the hunting season to be opened immediately to an unlimited number of hunters and with bag limits of no less than 33,000 birds.
It did not exclude the possibility of street protests if the government did not respond.
"The worst thing is that the season as proposed is discriminatory because it is only open for 2,500 hunters (20 per cent) and it does not allow trapping or Sunday hunting.
"If these things were not the case, we may have managed to work with a six-day season."
He said that only 61 hunters had applied for the special hunting license as proposed by the government, "but as far as we know none of them has actually paid for the licence".
At least 11 people have told the FKNK that they would not pay the licence fee of €25. The FKNK stressed that they were not setting an ultimatum but making an appeal.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party yesterday met the federation and reiterated its position in favour of the recommendations made by the government's hunting advisory body, the Ornis committee.
Ornis had recommended a three-week hunting season with a number of limitations including the taking of up to 33,000 birds (22,298 turtle doves and 10,837 quails).
The hunting season will open on Saturday. In a statement later, the government said the European Commission had clearly disagreed with the government's position that the taking of 25,406 birds in spring was within the limits of the Birds Directive. But despite this, the PL agreed with the taking of 33,135, 7,729 more.
It described Labour's stand as irresponsible both in regard to the tax-paying, non-hunting public, because they would have to pay any fines imposed by the European Court of Justice, as well as in regard to the hunters themselves because this would lead to the loss of what had already been achieved in the European Court.