The starting gun will be fired on Saturday for the commencement of the three-week spring hunting season, during which time Malta's 13,000 or so registered hunters will be vying for a total of just 5,000 birds.  It is, truth be told, a short hunting season with a greatly reduced amount of quarry compared with the spring hunting seasons of the past.

On paper, this is a good thing for the conservation of bird species making their way to their breeding grounds, but, on the other hand, it also provides so much temptation for hunters to commit illegalities.

Provided that all hunters apply for the special hinting licence required to hunt this spring, more than half of the country's hopeful hunters taking to the fields should end up going home completely empty-handed this season, should the letter of the law be abided to in full by each and every hunter.

Making the pickings even slimmer is the fact that in addition to the national bag limit of 5,000 quail, hunters will be allowed to shoot a maximum of 10 birds across the whole season and they will also be allowed a maximum of five birds per day.

This will obviously place hunters in a great deal of competition considering the small amount of legal quarry.  And as such the temptation will be high for hunters to not declare each and every quail shot, and there will also be a great deal of temptation to shoot other species, not least of which is the turtledove, the hunting of which has been placed under a temporary moratorium.

It will also place a great deal of pressure on the authorities to keep instances of illegal hunting at bay.  And judging from the amount of illegalities that persisted throughout last autumn's hunting season, the outlook is not too positive as matters stand.

It is high time that the powers that be implement a zero tolerance policy toward illegal hunting once and for all, and to back their words up with concrete action.

That is because quite apart from the ecological threat stemming from the slaughter of protected birds over Malta each autumn and spring, there is a wider question at hand - that of respect for the law of the land.  And while all those concerned - the government and hunting lobbies included - have called for zero tolerance to illegal hunting, as they do each year to little avail, concrete action in such cases will speak far stronger than mere words.

The government must, once and for all, strictly implement the zero tolerance policy that it preaches to all forms of illegal hunting.  Fines need to be increased further still and examples need to be made for those indulging in illegal hunting practices.  They can no longer hide behind arguments of traditional pastimes - the law is the law, full stop.

After all, the government's credibility is on the line, illegal hunting is illegal and citizens simply cannot be allowed to run rampant and flout the law of the land with impunity as they have been allowed to do for so long when it comes to hunting.

The government must set an example, it must enforce the law and not allow the bad apples among the hunting community to make a mockery of the laws of the land.