Unfortunately as they say comparisons are odious and those referring to paintings and cars are just that.

Whatever the reasons for hunting, and there is little doubt that it is not practiced for essential sustenance in Malta, they are not relevant to the debate.

Nevertheless your arguments clearly expose the real reasons for the “spring” hunting referendum – it’s nothing to do with “spring” but just chipping away at hunting in general, as was always known by all. Nothing new there, just an admission.

Is it right or is it wrong is the debate. Is the taking of “x” number of any particular species sustainable, or is it not?

There are only two kinds of objectors to hunting (or fishing, or the taking of absolutely any animal species from the wild, mussels, prawns, calamari anyone?) and those are, vegans, and hypocrites.

Vegans I have no argument with, it’s an opinion even if I disagree with it because man is omnivorous, unlike, for example, bovines. Being omnivorous and specifically eating meat has been proven to be one main reason for the accelerated evolutionary development of the human brain. Were we vegetarians our stomachs would be designed to deal with a diet based on plant material alone, like a cow’s. It is not, and furthermore a purely vegetarian diet, without the knowledge of supplements and careful dietary choices all of which were unknown to our forbears, is extremely unhealthy and will lead to an early death.

Hypocrites because whenever one eats any form of animal one is simply entrusting the killing of said animal to someone else. Out of sight, out of mind, how very convenient.

Considering furthermore the immense amount of food waste including of course that which is animal derived, one could conclude that man totally unnecessarily kills perhaps 25% of all the production (animal killing, let’s let this sink in) of slaughterhouses and fisheries worldwide.

That’s a hell of a lot of cuddly animals going from lovable to landfill, but it’s all OK, yet some people who are at least deriving some harmless (if sustainable) pleasure from following what is a basic instinct that may take millennia or more to evolve out, well, that’s just not on, because it ultimately exposes our hypocrisy relating to the preceding.

They are declining in numbers where Maltese hunters have no effect on their populations. Sorry for not being clear.

More of the same, refer to the Malta Independent:

http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-05-08/news/government-highlights-objective-debate-on-hunting-in-malta-in-house-of-commons-4896555008/

But again, that’s not hunting. In that case they kill wolves to protect their livestock.

Even in Sweden in the case of wolf hunting, people who are against wolf hunting usually have never seen a wolf and have never had a wolf kill their wildstock. It’s an urban vs rural issue really.

You don’t have to be a teenager quarrelling over internet usage, you could be a group of people sharing a flat. Of course it enters into the equation. Wouldn’t you want to live in a household where everyone is reasonably content? In any case, here you go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_cap

It was just an example, no need to be so condescending about it. I could have used an example of a shared water pump in a village suffering drought.

But anyway, moving on. I think it’s a bit cliche to say that hunting is “shooting for the pleasure of killing.” With that mindset one would assume that hunters are homicidal maniacs, or that they routinely torture their hunting dogs.

[Daphne – The only thing that really wears me out about running this blog is dealing with illogical reasoning. Of course hunters shoot for the pleasure of killing in Malta – they’re not exactly after the birds for food, are they. And it’s not target practice, otherwise they’d be in a range. The fact that they don’t routinely torture their hunting dogs (with which they have a relationship) does not mean they don’t get a thrill out of killing birds. Nor does that mean they are homicidal maniacs. It is, however, very much an urge to destroy.]

I think there’s different reasons why one would choose to hunt. Unfortunately this isn’t the case in Malta, but there are numerous examples of hunters who contribute and donate to conservation programmes because they do not only enjoy nature, but think it is in their best interest to preserve it. Here are some examples in the US:

http://www.rmef.org/Conservation/HuntingIsConservation/25ReasonsWhyHuntingIsConservation.aspx

Besides, I would guess that there are people who think hunting is atrocious but wouldn’t hesitate to harm a mouse, spider or lizard.

[Daphne – You’re doing it again. People who kill mice and spiders (why lizards?) don’t make a point of sitting around all day waiting to kill them for fun. They might find a mouse in their house and sensibly, will kill it rather than have it run around the place for months.]

Many people miss the point of a hunt: it is a stroll, a stalk and possibly a shoot but not always. Hunting in Malta: sit in lay-by, wait for tired and hungry bird to come close, shoot – possibly with an auto, if the first cartridge does not do it, the third one is bound to hit it-.

I would really like to see these people trying trying to get a deer hunt licence – they’ll have to start again at secondary school level, if not primary.

There is another argument to this, apart from the ‘cruelty’ and killing of birds.

Hunting (as done by humans, ie using guns) takes away specimens of species indiscriminately as it does not weed out the weak specimens of a population, but on the contrary, it mostly removes the stronger ones. This is especially true for spring hunting more than anything.

The removal of strong, healthy specimens, weakens the species as it permits the lower spectrum of specimens to reproduce.

So effectively, to continue with Daphne’s argument, it is not a simple question of numbers.

“British birds” has a tinge of hamallagni to it.