Hunters have had to compromise a lot to achieve a limited spring hunting season and it would be unfair to abolish it altogether, hunting federation president Joe Perici Calascione said yesterday.

He argued that it was possible for hunters and other interest groups to share the countryside.

“It has always been the Maltese way to co-exist and we can continue to do so by respecting and tolerating each other,” Mr Perici Calascione said when quizzed by journalists in a televised press conference as part of the Broadcasting Authority’s referendum schedule.

He insisted that removing the 20 half-days in spring when hunters could shoot quail and turtle doves was an “extreme measure”.

He said the Yes campaign would respect the result but insisted it would evaluate all legal options after the referendum because the possibility to apply a derogation was built into EU legislation.

No one can understand how it feels to have the thing you are passionate about being taken away

The referendum was being used as a tool to specifically target the interests of a minority group, he maintained.

Throughout the press conference he asked voters to empathise with hunters.

“No one can understand how it feels to have the thing you are passionate about being taken away,” he said.

Mr Perici Calascione said anti-hunting campaigners had for years fomented disdain towards hunters. But abuse had been curtailed and punishments for illegal acts had increased. When asked whether hunters could be trusted with reporting the number of birds they killed – it is these numbers that are used to justify the application of the derogation – Mr Perici Calascione insisted hunters were subjected to numerous spot checks by the police.

Hunters had learnt not to take risks and to be responsible.

Asked about the Yes campaign’s deliberate omission of hunting guns and dead birds from their publicity material, Mr Perici Calascione said hunters had done a lot to conserve the natural environment through the planting of trees and rebuilding of rubble walls.

“We do a lot of good that we have never publicised and thought it was important to let people know about it. But of course we use shot guns to hunt. Of course birds are killed but we eat them just like other animals are slaughtered to be sold at supermarkets,” he said.

Mr Perici Calascione insisted the hunting of quail and turtle doves in Malta posed no threat to either species.

He said the Yes campaign would present its audited accounts after the referendum.

kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com