David Conlin, on behalf of the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS), would have us believe he can solve the problem of bird crime in Malta. In his letter Four Steps To Solving Illegal Hunting (February 24), apart from defamatory remarks directed at our government and the police, he suggests steps the Maltese should follow in order to accomplish this.

Considering he expects his advice to be credible, one assumes his expertise in solving such problems is based on past achievements and remarkable results. Mr Conlin is the operations manager of CABS, a German based group that operates on generous public donations received from a German public that looks down on Malta and its hunters for what Mr Conlin considers to be “shocking news of illegal hunting”.

Also being the official English translator for CABS responsible for the translation of their website into English, he is conversant with what he himself translated.

The section on hunting in Germany on this same website (www.komitee.de/en/projects/germany/hunting-germany) states:

“Germany’s hunters, some 350,000 in number, interfere massively in the ecological system of the countryside. Unlike other EU states, there is a widespread lack of hunting controls in Germany. The maxim here is self-control. In many hunting reserves, shooting of raptors, poisoning of ‘predators’ and other offences against hunting and nature protection legislation are therefore the order of the day.

“All raptor species in Germany are still officially categorised as ‘huntable wildlife’.

“Germany’s southernmost state Bavaria has to date blatantly ignored the EU bird protection guidelines and permitted the annual killing of hundreds of goshawks and buzzards. Elsewhere, the perpetrators find their own way around the law.”

Assuming the above is not another CABS fallacy and considering the fact that CABS have been in existence in Germany since 1975, Mr Conlin’s credentials as a problem solver and CABS’s effectiveness in curbing abuse are totally discredited. His stating that “at home I pay my taxes to preserve and protect the environment including the habitats and lives of birds” raises a very pertinent question. Considering his taxes are not likely to have been abused and, subsequently, such taxes as he himself states cater for the protection of the environment and birds, what do the funds collected by CABS since 1975 account for?

Fully paid biannual camps full of biased inflammatory anti-hunting propaganda in Malta, Italy and Cyprus and elsewhere for the self-proclaimed bird guards that are not even able to sort out the problem with illegalities in their own country perhaps?