The Federation for Hunting and Conservation is working on a project to open a hunting school in Malta.

Launching a booklet dedicated to hunting safety during the opening ceremony of the Game and Country Expo at Ta’ Qali the other day, FKNK president Joseph Perici Calascione said that it had always been the aim of the hunting federation to instil a culture of safety among members. It was then that he announced that work had begun on the establishment of a “sustainable hunting academy”.

Mr Perici Calascione noted that the booklet, written by a well-known Italian “hunting educator” in the international field, was a crucial part of the studies that will feature in the academy’s curriculum when it was set up. Written in both English and Maltese, the publication will be distributed free of charge to all registered hunters when they renew their annual licences. He underlined that the FKNK placed considerable importance on the safety element to be exercised during hunting.

While the federation had taken all possible measures to cover the vast majority of local hunting practices, it was also now looking into other practices abroad “using rifles rather than shotguns”, Mr Perici Calascione added. This, he went on, was because the practice of using hunting rifles was gaining ground in Malta, especially among hunting licence-holders who nowadays went abroad to practise the sport.

The Federation is hoping that its efforts to promote sustainable and safe hunting would continue to demonstrate its commitment to upholding the highest standards of “socio-cultural” activities “in a world that needs to understand the importance of hunting as a useful tool of conservation”.

Many people in this country who read or heard about the hunters’ plans to open a “sustainable hunting academy” and their president’s plea that it is a pastime, an intrinsic part of the Maltese culture and tradition, would have certainly passed ribald remarks of disbelief, or worse, even if some of them might have also taken it with a pinch of salt.

And with some justification. Avian outrages in Malta are rife and occur each year. The slaughter of booted eagles, ospreys, flamingos, spoonbills, storks, falcons, song birds, mute swans and other beautiful protected species as they fly across the sky is too fresh in people’s memories.

And, yet, on reflection, it would be wrong and short-sighted to react in this way. It is commendable that the federation is prepared to recognise there is a major problem in “educating” licence-holders. As the Bible says: “Joy be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.”

The planned academy – may it happen - will tackle the safety aspects of hunting, including, one hopes, the safety of other people enjoying the freedom of the countryside. But, more importantly, the hunting school will also focus extensively on bird recognition and the paramount need to protect endangered protected species from being destroyed. Some hunters’ present mantra of ‘if it flies, it dies’ must be changed.

The “sustainable hunting academy” – if it is indeed to have “sustainability” at its core, as its name implies - must work towards nothing less than a change in the culture of those Maltese who still hunt. Only then would this project be deemed worthy of support.