Absolutely. Look, hunting is a noble sport, and as a defender of anything remotely civilised, I’d be the first to support it. But it’s got to be done with CLASS.

In Malta? Our hunting lobby goes on about traditions. Bollocks. People hunted for subsistence, the Maltese population was a fifth of what it is now, birds of prey still nested in Malta, and you could still come across the occasional stoat and weasel. You’d go out at the crack of dawn, walk ten miles to the nearest wooded area, spend one minute reloading your musket, and maybe fire off five shots, hoping to catch one, if you were lucky enough to own a gun.

Now the population density has exploded, you go out at the crack of dawn, get your fat arse into your Pajero, drive to the last few remaining square inches of greenish space, and blast away at anything that moves with your shotgun. Then you go back to your terraced boxy shytehouse to eat chicken kievs. That’s not class. That’s hamallagni of the basest kind.

“I feel as sorry for your husband as I do for the birds”.

I feel more sorry for her. She seems to rank second place in the list of priorities.

@ Edward Caruana Galizia:

“our country’s tradition” – do you have supporting evidence for that, or are you just taking their word for it.

I can accept that hunting IS a tradition, but to call it a “national pastime” or “national tradition” is as much an exageration as having a breakdown because the hunting season is reduced.

It requires more patience, perseverance and skill and I think will be found more rewarding.

Maybe there should be some government program to assist hunters with the ‘conversion’ perhaps even providing some element of subsidy on the equipment which generally costs far more than guns.

Exactly. All the rest of us, around 400,000, are passive hunters.

We have had more than enough of them.

It is about time they recognised the real situation.

They should be thankful for small mercies.

I “don’t mind” you killing birds to eat them but I do mind killing birds just FOR FUN. How many birds are just left dead in the fields? And what about all those lead pellets in the fields where food is grown? And lead seeping into the ground and into the water table?

There’s lots of “steam” being let off and by the looks (more aptly smell) of it, misconceived opinion coming out of the most inappropriate of orifices.

Put it this way. I know people who enjoy hunting, three to be precise. They are polite and respectable people who do hold down decent jobs.

They used to go hunting as a family, very much like people go fishing together. Nowadays they don’t and it has changed their life. They would eat the birds they caught too, so it wasn’t just a case of firing guns for fun.

I can never understand what type of joy they get out of it, the same way I cannot understand why people enjoy fishing. But it is arrogant to ignore the fact that people enjoyed hunting, and it was more than just shooting whatever flew overhead.

Unless you are a vegetarian it is hypocritical to demonize others who kill animals for food since most people have no problem with the way cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and ducks are slaughtered.

There are people who live very different lives, and they get a lot of fulfillment from it.

So I can see why they view the situation as unfair, when part of their family tradition and, like it or not, our country’s tradition is snatched away from them by people they don’t know and who don’t know them, or anything about hunting to begin with.

That being said, having a breakdown is a bit much. I don’t know what they are trying to gain by claiming that.

Baxxter, here’s a Canadian hunting tradition for you. My brother’s father-in-law, 91 years old, just returned from hunting bear in northern Canada (mostly black and brown bear). Goes every year. His buddies, 70 to 80 years, use bow and arrow, but they allow him to use a rifle. He didn’t fire a shot, saw two bear, and his buddies got three.

I know, still not fair for the bear. But a little more chancey than hiding in the rocks shooting sparrows with shot guns,