“So according to you both leaders must have cobwebs in place of their brain because they both are voting YES”.

It’s not just that, jd.

First it was the divorce issue, now it’s spring hunting. What’s next? I’ve lost all hope in Maltese politics.

We would have been better had we not gotten independence. It must be in our genes. We are not European at all.

I’m sure Liberal gets your point. I do too.

But how many times do we have to vote for the lesser evil before it’s too much? Sooner or later, we will crack. And that’s how votes are lost.

I know a lot of people who are thoroughly upset with Simon Busuttil’s stand, but the very fact that they can understand that spring hunting should not be allowed means that they can think logically.

This in turn leads me to believe that they will not let that influence their vote.

Having said I suppose we will just have to wait and see. The average Maltese voter always manages to score lower than I expect, no matter how low I set the threshold.

Nationalist MPs have little option but to appear to be in favour of spring hunting. That way, if spring hunting is banned the hunters can’t take it out on the Party in the next election.

Sometimes you opt to lose a battle to win a war.

I desperately hope that spring hunting is banned, but the Nationalist Party coming out against spring hunting would have meant the loss of the next election.

[Daphne – My considered view is that the reverse is true: that the Nationalist Party leader taking a stand in favour of spring hunting has caused further damage to the party’s electoral chances. The Nationalist Party has not attracted hunters by doing this, and it has alienated civilised people and environmentalists.]

My argument is about spring hunting voting YES or NO.

Hell broke loose because Dr. Simon Busuttil pronounced himself in favour of a YES vote. Had he opted for a NO vote, it wold have been a race between parties with a sure win for the YES. Being liberal, in this case, does not mean a sure win for the NO.

So according to you both leaders must have cobwebs in place of their brain because they both are voting YES.

I will be voting PN in the next general election (the lesser level) and NO in this coming referendum, because I want something to hunt for in the future. Get my point?

Fishing licences don’t even exist in Malta.

Perhaps, yes, they’d be a bother, but they’d make people aware of the conservation angle.

And then there is Azzopardi. Probably a no-go zone by local standards: he provides the three level freezers the size of Tokyo with a three-year fish/tuna reserve. Pretty impressive, from the conservation angle.

There are so many other game birds one could choose from..

True, re grouse.. but there are those that go for the challenge:
http://www.greatnorthern.net/~dye/grouse_ideas.htm

This is besides the point when it comes to a spring hunting argument specifically, but has anyone stopped to wonder what happens to the hundreds of thousands of lead pellets left in the sea and countryside, and in the shot bird itself?

How many pellets have been ingested by hunters over the years?

On this little island, I would have thought someone would speak out against lead poisoning.

Lead poisoning is partly why the Roman civilisation went into decline. Lead poisoning turns people mad.

________

The reality that hunters can hunt just about anywhere during the rest of the hunting seasons is as much of an inconvenience and danger as spring hunting a conservation issue.

There is no regulation in Malta. What the Maltese hunters want is an absolute carte blanche, or – not in any way different – a status quo.

Every sport is regulated and where the controls are firmly in place, it works.

Hunting, in Malta, is a farce. Trapping is no better.

Jozef, #occupyPN has never been more necessary. Do it now, because we’re at the point of no return here.

A. Attard may be foolish, but Simon Busuttil is arguing on pretty much the same lines.