For far too long, the issue of Spring hunting has been an all-too-effective tool in the hands of the country’s politicians that has been used time again for the sole purpose of acquiring votes - no more and no less.

It began with the EU referendum and it has been used up until the last general election by one political party or another, who have bent over backwards to appease the hunting lobby, which, in turn, has blackmailed the country’s two main political parties with their votes for over a decade now. 

This misguided, unethical practice can be put to an end once and for all, with the people’s vote on 11 April.

The population finds itself at an interesting crossroads now that the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader have taken near identical stances on the referendum – that they will both personally vote in favour of retaining the Spring hunting season, that they will allow their MPs a free vote, that they will not campaign on the issue and that they will respect the people’s decision.

This will be the first referendum in living memory called for by the people and not by politicians. It will also be the first referendum to cancel a law – the law allowing the government to apply a derogation from the EU’s Birds Directive to allow Spring hunting, for which Malta is reviled across Europe.

It will also be one that does not pit one political party against another, quite unlike the EU accession referendum and the more recent divorce referendum.

And the fact that the Opposition leader yesterday declared he would vote in favour of Malta’s derogation, which he himself helped negotiate with the EU, could very well be a boon or a curse for the campaign seeking to abolish the Spring hunt.

The Opposition leader yesterday put his own referendum choice down to a personal one, as he had been deeply embroiled in EU accession negotiations to retain Spring hunting. After all, he may have been accused of being disingenuous had he declared otherwise.

And although we do not agree with his stance, there is the silver lining. He has effectively neutralised Muscat’s endorsement. It was, perhaps, the best thing that could have happened. Had the Opposition leader taken a stance against Spring hunting, that would have placed him and the Prime Minister at odds with each other, and in the process, induce a disastrous referendum result should the electorate have felt compelled to vote along the lines of political allegiances. Such a result would have surely sealed the future of Spring hunting in this country, given the current sway of the electorate.

On 11 April the country’s deeply politicised electorate will not feel compelled to vote along party lines, nor along the lines of their respective political leaders, simply to spite their opposite number.

But then again, if the electorate were to follow their political leaders’ lead, the result would be disastrous for the anti-Spring hunting campaign.

We, however, would prefer to give the electorate the benefit of the doubt and assume that once free of any political shackles, it will make a well-informed and well-thought out choice.

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It is the Spring hunting season and only the Spring season - not the Autumn season - that is being called into question in the upcoming referendum. 

It was the Spring hunting season that hunters were promised would be retained upon Malta’s EU accession.

It is the Spring season that Brussels had taken exception to and it was the Spring season over which it hauled the Maltese government before the European Court of Justice. It is the Spring season that the Maltese government defended tooth and nail before the ECJ.

And it was for the Spring season that the current government promised it would reduce the red tape and regulations before the last general election – and it consequently did.

It is the Spring season that has a devastating effect on bird populations. In Spring, birds migrate over Malta on their way to their breeding grounds and in the Autumn migration, they return to their winter grounds after having replenished their numbers.

The abolishment of the Spring hunting season, as the 11 April referendum will seek to ensure, will not spell the end of Maltese hunting. It will merely ban the practice in Spring and in the process, limit the practice to Autumn. The Autumn hunting season, incidentally, runs for five months, with this year’s ‘Autumn’ season running from 1 September to 31 January.

The majority of the population, hunters and avid environmentalists aside, would appear to have no real vested interest in the issue, unlike in the EU referendum. This is, however, wrong, which brings us to a subsidiary but extremely important reason why the Spring hunting season must be abolished – the enjoyment of the countryside. 

It is about the vast majority of the Maltese population having access to the countryside without fear of being shot, by accident or otherwise. Why do we have laws that allow public access to all points of the Maltese foreshore, but we still allow the countryside to be largely inaccessible by the public in Spring, and Autumn for that matter?

Yes, the hunting community is a minority, as their representatives have argued before the Constitutional Court in their unsuccessful and desperate bid to scuttle the referendum. There are, in fact, fewer than 15,000 registered hunters versus over 400,000 other Maltese citizens who have a right to practice their ‘hobby’ of enjoying this country’s glorious Spring countryside.

The hunting lobby has cried foul over a minority’s right, the right of hunters to practice their ‘hobby’ of hunting in Spring, but was disregarded by the Constitutional Court, which established that there is no such thing as a right to hunt. But what about the non-hunting population’s right to exercise their environmentally-friendly practice of enjoying the countryside?

This issue will be something of a litmus test for the population. It will have to use its best judgement and will not be subject to incessant campaigning by the political parties. The electorate will be called, on 11 April, to a new kind of politically-unbiased maturity.

 

Now, the time has come for the people to speak up and give a resounding ‘No’ to Spring hunting and to politicians’ monopoly over the issue.