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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That makes him the ultimate hypocrite.

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.