UPDATED: Can we have a bit more information about this coalition to abolish spring hunting?
Published:
July 27, 2013 at 1:01pm
The story in Times of Malta has since been updated with the required information. Please see link below.
Times of Malta reports on the setting up of a coalition to abolish spring hunting in Malta, but without any details as to who the organisers are or which NGOs are on board.
This is essential information if support is to be gathered. I would like to join/help, but I need that information first. Should the organisers wish to send it in, I will upload it here.
Abolishing hunting altogether is a pipedream, so we can at least be realistic and go for spring shooting and trapping.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-07-27/news/coalition-for-the-abolition-of-spring-hunting-established-2172452867/
The Coalition is made up of eleven organisations: Alternattiva Demokratika, Birdlife Malta, Coalition for Animal Rights, Din l-Art Helwa, Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar, Friends of the Earth Malta, Gaia Foundation, Moviment Graffiti, Greenhouse Malta, Nature Trust (Malta) and the Ramblers Association of Malta.
[Daphne – Now we need information on how individuals can help, other than by signing a petition.]
http://www.di-ve.com/news/updated-11-organisations-seek-abolish-spring-hunting-adds-ad-comments
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130727/local/coalition-to-abolish-spring-hunting-set-up.479607
Stop hunting now
Where do I sign?
The coalition will never manage to collect 35,000 signatures using the traditional paper and pen method.
What needs to be done is to allow online signing using Facebook/E-ID/Google accounts to support the holding of an abrogative referendum on spring hunting.
One thing for sure is that Kenneth Zammit Tabona will not join this time round, since he might offend the object of his infatuation.
Yeah, he’s not into birds anyway.
That makes him the ultimate hypocrite.
This initiative deserves support. This is one of the several issues which the major political parties will never resolve because of the fear of losing votes and because of the strong lobbying.
This despite the fact that much more are against. The other pressing issue which concerns the vast majority is the rape and take over of public land and turning it into slum dwellings.
There is not much AD can hope to achieve but this is where it can lead from outside the Parliament.
I do honestly hope that the NGOs can organise this national effort and wish them every success.
I am Osservatore and I’m in. Just tell me where to put my name. My father was a hunter who quit over 40 odd years ago when hunters were allowed single shot guns.
At the time he felt sorry for the birds because he realised that even way back, they never stood a chance. I was raised to deplore hunting and the sooner we can see the end of it, the better for the majority of us.
I’d be in if I had to petition the Armier slobs out.
I’d also be in if I had to petition for the fair treatment of bona fide refugees but the boot for economic migrants.
Some facts: Spring Hunting as currently practiced post-EU is, actually, just a two week season for two game birds, with plenty of time and bag restrictions.
This entails the correct application of just 2 derogations from the Birds Directive, pursuant to the ECJ Judgement that, given Malta’s special circumstances, limited spring hunting is in principle permissable.
For the sake of perspective, the UK alone annually applies around 1,700 derogations which the EU Commission apparently accepts as carte blanche.
Lastly, quail and turtle doves are both listed as Species of Least Concern in terms of their conservation status – by none less that Birdlife International. The European declines we hear so much about (and, incidentally, these bird populations have NEVER migrated anywhere near Malta) are mainly attributed to the EU’s abysmal Common Agricultural Policy, habitat loss, human disturbance, pesticides and competing species like the collared dove (ironically, a heavily shot bird/pest across the EU).
By all means have a referendum, but let the electorate take an informed decision.
Andrew,
It has been curtailed to a 2 week season, but hunters are vying to increase it (officially), moreover Spring happens to be the best time of the year when families can enjoy some quality time in a healthy environment in the public countryside.
Malta special circumstances, involve one of the highest population density in the world, with the highest consentration of hunters within a scant countryside. This consentration of hunters and their lead pellets are an environmental hazard at best, and any comparisons with any other state (apart from San Marino and the Vatican) is flawed.
Lastly but not least, any organisation that decimates birds before they can reproduce, rather than await the Autumn migration, cannot call itself conservationalist. A hunting season that runs from September to January all around the island, with non factually effective controls is bad enough.
D Borg, the autumn migration of turtle doves and quail is so poor, erratic and limited to certain areas of Malta that the ECJ ruling specifically referred to this reality.
The judgment left the door ajar for limited Spring Hunting precisely because the Autumn season was not considered a satisfactory alternative to Spring.
And let me assure you that the “decimation” you mention would apply to the other EU countries whose bag runs from 2-4 million head of turtle doves annually. Even our spring bag during pre-EU years (with a season of 2 FULL MONTHS) was a pittance.
Enforcement is another matter. Same as the Armier squatters, the beach concessions, VAT-less Comino, pavement pirates and a million other curses of this island of nepotism, amateurs, pettiness and spite.
And,
On that criteria, you would be out hunting all year round, if every month a different bird flies over Malta.
Hunters are allowed to hunt for 5 months practically on a daily basis – which involves men roaming around & travelling with shotguns in the countryside and on public roads.
Thus the debatable alternative (or lack thereof) is not related to hunting but, at most, to hunting two birds out of tens others that hunters have a licence to kill from September to January (and make a nuisance of themselves at the crack of dawn and pose a factual danger to anyone venturing out in the countryside).
Final point about the crucial data about the birds – this is collated by hunters themselves, which obviously have a vested interest to deflate the killings and also to skew the transit from Autumn to Spring. In fact some ‘communications’ on FKNK’s own website spoon-fed it.
If the hunters stuck to shooting those two game birds, you would have some kind of a point, but we all know that being allowed to shoot for those two weeks, always results in an indiscriminate butchery every year.
The rest of your post is a non-sequitur as we already do have an informed opinion on which to base our decision. Quoting Bird Directives is only playing into the hunters ( sic ) hands – you have to understand, we already KNOW what really goes on in those two weeks, no excuses, no apologetic rhetoric, this butchery has gone on long enough, it is fact and everyone and his neighbour knows what really goes on.
Carlos, I beg to differ. If, as you say, indiscriminate butchery and slaughter are the norm, then Malta would be knee-deep in dead birds, rather than the few dozen? score? incidents gleefully splashed all over the world by Birdlife, CABS et al.
In my hunting zone, last Spring, there were no incidents of protected species being shot – a vast improvement over the years. This is FACT. Were you out there logging illegalities, every day from 5.00am?
Doubt it.
It has to be the paper method – the referendum law does not allow other methods.
Great initiative, but why now? How convenient for the government to have this coalition take it upon themselves to stop spring hunting.
This way if they succeed the government will have its hands tied to hold a referendum.
At the end the majority will be happy that the law will be passed and the hunters cannot take it against the government.
Does it really matter as long as it is stopped? No government will ever do it. They are spineless in this area. Come on coalition, let’s start collecting signatures.
Piña , you are wrong about the referendum about the spring hunting. In the general election campaign, when Muscat was asked whether we should have a referendum on hunting, he replied in the negative. This was at the two leaders’ debate at the InterContinental Hotel.