Hunting is a constant source of debate in this country as well as others. Before the reports were largely featured in European media, but this “sport” has now been discovered by the Americans, in particular CNN’s European political editor Robin Oakley.

Hunting has been debated over and over again in this newspaper, with the most recent article being carried last Thursday.

Mr Oakley reported: “All countries in the European Union have to adopt its laws. But new arrivals have been allowed to negotiate special exemptions where national traditions are strong.”

He said Malta, the smallest entrant, held out controversially for the right to keep hunting some migratory birds like turtle doves and trapping finches.

At the Ghadira nature reserve, egrets, moorhens and waders enjoy the salt marsh shallows, along with more colourful species like yellow wagtails, wrote Mr Oakley.

“But getting to the reserve can be risky. More than 6,000 Maltese are licensed to hunt and conservationists claim nothing is safe, even on the spring migration to breed.”

Says Ghadira nature reserve warden Charles Gauci: “Egrets are clearly very much at risk, even though they are protected. And also, unfortunately, birds like swallows – if there is nothing else to shoot they are shot at random.”

But many Maltese are entirely unapologetic about their traditions, Mr Oakley wrote.

He quoted trapper John Vella as being happy to show how he uses a captive turtle dove, hooded and tethered to a platform, as a lure to entice others into his clap nets.

Primitive

Primitive, read the sub-head. “I attract the birds by showing that one and when they come in I just pull. It’s a very primitive trapping which has been used since the Knights of Malta,” Vella told Oakley.

By day, Charles Micallef works for a Birdlife Malta nature reserve, wrote Mr Oakley. “But off duty he has more than a hundred birds in cages and aviaries that dominate his home. He doesn’t see any contradiction. Trapping, he says, is not threatening a species,” he wrote.

‘Harassment’

The debate remains a vigorous one. Bird-keepers argue they are constantly harassed, wrote Mr Oakley.

He quoted Micallef as saying: “Police come every moment and search for something illegal. Warden Gauci told Mr Oakley: “I know the Malta Tourism Authority receives several complaints a day about hunting and trapping, but somehow the government keeps closing its eyes.”

So with EU entry next month, does Micallef believe he will still be keeping his birds in 20 years? “I think so. I wish I die with them,” he confessed.

Mr Oakley said bird watchers had been hoping that Malta’s arrival in the EU would see greater curbs on the island’s hunting of migrant species.

“For the moment they’ve largely been disappointed.

“However, they hope that greater exposure over time will lead to a new balance between local tradition and growing pressures for conservation,” concluded Mr Oakley.