With respect to Paul’s comment about first steps or otherwise, he might be strategically correct, assuming the hunters and their supporters are mostly fools. Be that as it may, I prefer truth to strategy.

The end does not justify the means, but that’s just me.

With respect to the fish question, I do eat wild caught fish, but I make distinctions.

For instance, if a restaurant tells me they have a cerna for two or an acciola for two, it is obvious that it is young and therefore has not bred, and I decline it.

You can mostly make similar choices with other species. If in doubt, go for the farmed stuff.

I see, so when you shoot a bird, you are actually increasing their numbers?

He has a right to call for an outright ban on hunting, but dare he eat a fresh fish or any other non reared animal

Sorry Vanni but didn’t you read my comment above? Hunting in general and even more specifically hunting in Malta is not the cause of decline in turtle dove population.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/conservation/wildbirds/hunting/docs/turtle_dove.pdf

But then don’t take my word for it.

The way farmhouses were built in days gone by would have made provision for such birds to nest. Owls, buzzards etc do not need to live in total isolation or only in a forest or wood. Proximity to trees and hunting ground within a definable span would be good for them.

New buildings do not make such provisions. Owls are not that shy of humans that they will necessarily choose to always nest at a distance. But they do like to stick to their nest year-in year-out, and if that is threatened, and its neighbourhood too, well then the owl won’t stick around.

“The PN needs to get people to focus on the government’s many faults: …more threats to the environment…”

Sure, and the best way to do that is for the PN leader to be himself a threat to the environment by voting yes to Spring hunting.

You are calling them spineless on the assumption that they are actually against hunting but pretending not to be. That is quite a big assumption.

Had Simon Busuttil done that he would have risked looking like a “loser”.

I think he made the mature and calculated decision of de-politicising this issue in the hope that the No vote succeeds anyway.

I am sure deep down either party would prefer not to have to pander to these hooligans every time they need votes.

The author is also treading dangerous ground by declaring he is in favour of an outright ban on hunting. He has every right to do so of course, but that’s just the kind of scaremongering tactic the hunting lobby have been trying to employ, besides actual physical intimidation of course.

They have consistently claimed “this is the first step to an outright ban” with the hope of getting sympathy.

Whether one wishes hunting to be banned outright or not they should quietly hold their tongue and focus on the spring hunting issue or they risk changing the way the general public view the vote, symbolising it as a fight to retain a hobby rather than to control the season.

[Daphne – You are perfectly correct about that.]

Well, here’s hoping that your son will tell you that he has evolved over previous generations, thank you very much.

Here’s hoping that he will also tell you that while you and he are enjoying the turtledove, his children and grandchildren maybe will have to forgo that pleasure. Why? Because their gramps was selfish.

But maybe he will tell you that no, dad, that turtledove that you want to shoot doesn’t belong to you or me, same as that tiger doesn’t belong to one person, but belongs to humanity.

Furthermore I hope he will tell you that by your selfishness you are stealing from his children and their children.

There may be hope for your son, but never you mind, at least you get to enjoy yourself.

Oh for f*ck’s sake, Jozef! How long have you been following politics? Sometimes I feel as if I’ve been around longer than you. Because believe me, I’ve seen it all, and there hasn’t been a time in the last three decades when those from a Stricklandian background felt LESS at home in the PN than today.

I thought the massive electoral defeat, and I might as well add the disastrous state the party’s in, would make them realise who it was that voted them in back in the 1960s, and kept them in the game, and often in power, ever since.

Today’s PN is a spent force. It is a nasty joke. And do you know why? Because the ideologues and leaders have turned their backs on the Stricklandians and on Stricklandian principles.

I’m not just talking about the way the party has become working class by design, where the level of political discourse is the lowest it’s ever been, and the rising stars of the party are the most provincial, atavistic, boring, anti-cosmopolitan men you can find.

I’m talking about the principles. The PN doesn’t want a Stricklandian future for Malta. I’m not sure it’s even clear about what it wants, but they’re doing their damnedest to keep everything the way it is. The world is rushing by, we’re being left behind, we’re at the cusp of history and they want to preserve all this – the ignorance, the hamallagni, the uglification, the inequality, the injustice, the fottimenti big and small, the powerful lobbies, the undemocratic institutions, the abuse, the superstition and the nombrilism.

There’s nothing there that the Stricklandians can even remotely relate to.