Chris Packham’s column in The Observer last Sunday
The Observer, Sunday, 4 May 2014
CHRIS PACKHAM: WHY I’M FIGHTING TO STOP THE SLAUGHTER OF MALTA’S WILD BIRDS
The island is the EU’s last outpost of licensed spring shooting. The TV naturalist explains why it’s time to stop the barbarity.
(…) I have been invited to speak on television and radio programmes which together clock up nine million viewers, contributed to newspapers with a combined readership of 12 million and their online partners with 20 million readers.
While we were in Malta there were 2.8m tweets to our account and we trended twice in the UK.
Nearly 2,000 people downloaded our template letter to send to their MEPs, and by Friday we had raised more than €60,000 (£49,000) for BirdLife Malta and our blogs had been viewed by nearly 120,000 people.
(…) Well, there are several lights at the end of the barrel. First, and significantly, 44,000 Maltese people have petitioned their government to hold a referendum on the spring hunting issue. Independent polls suggest a minimum of 65% of the population are sick of it, and it embarrasses them. Their sham of democracy is uncovered by the perverse union of the government and this destructive minority. It also threatens valuable tourist revenue and prevents them from enjoying their countryside.
The vote should be held within a maximum of 11 months but last week the Maltese prime minister, Joseph Muscat, seemed to suggest that he would seek to block it under pressure from the hunting lobby, although now he seems to have retracted that remark. Unbelievable, really. (…)
Read the full column in the link below.
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http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/04/stop-slaughter-of-wild-birds-malta-chris-packham
If Muscat blocks the referendum on spring hunting, it will be an act of dictatorship.
Muscat is testing how far he can go with a nation of lemons.
He is already acting in a dictatorial manner by steam-rolling over one and all. Furthermore in all probability he has his hands tied by the hunting brigade.
In the circumstances he will probably avoid the referendum, giving one thousand and one reasons – read excuses – to convince his followers that acting like a strong man – i.e. dictator – is sometimes necessary.
Yes sure, and who is stopping Muscat. If people are still in a trance and we will know this for sure after the MEP elections, then nothing will stop him to block anything that does not please him.
So what? Haven’t we been there before in the 70s and 80s to our great misfortune?
That’s a lot of people who won’t be voting for Malta in the Eurovision and just as many who will be boycotting Malta for their holidays. Well done Joseph Muscat and the bird murderers.
The worst thing that could ever happen to the Maltese hunters was the election of the MLP/PL to power. That has resulted in a sense of utter hopelessness by the pro-bird-ant-hunting majority, who has now called it a day and went for the guttural with success.
During the PN times we were always hoping that more drastic measures would be taken, as was actually the case, progressively, such as the imposition of a 50 euro fee for each hunter to hunt in during Spring, more policemen on the hunting beat etc. But the first thing that joey did was to retract the 50 euro fee, thus losing out on some 250,000 euros every years, while hunters went on a bird-killing rampage.
That will be the time we went picnicking at Buskett in our masses.
Dear Mr Packham
May I kindly suggest a more just title to your column
… To stop the Maltese slaughter of wild birds.
Birds are wild and thus by definition do not belong to anyone but it’s unfortunately our. Maltese, actions that we need to own up for, in front of ourselves first and the rest of the world.
Xejn ġdid. Ilna naraw beraq u sajjetti, minn l-għada tal-elezzjoni. Santa Barbara la deni u lanqas ħsara.