Birdlife on Sunday pointed out an interesting coincidence – applications for rabbit hunting licences have soared by 20 per cent since the first ban on spring bird hunting in 2008.
It does indeed seem to be too much of a coincidence to be genuine – although the office responsible for processing these application, which happens to be the Office of the Prime Minister has not yet moved to clarify the issue.
Some might argue that since bird hunting was put on hold, then hunters might have opted to hunt for rabbit instead. It is a plausible argument and we are sure that there might me some huntsmen who have indeed gone down this road. Birdlife pointed out that last year, there were several species of bird including Kestrels and Turtle Doves who remained on the island after migration in order to pair and breed.
They also said that last year, as soon as the rabbit hunting season opened, the said birds began to disappear one by one. Rabbit Season officially opened yesterday and it remains to be seen whether the Administrative Law Enforcement Unit will be able to get to grips with this loophole. It will pose a problem, especially when one bears in mind that the regulations on rabbit hunting were amended to allow the use of air rifles. These are quieter and more compact that shotguns. Police will also be faced with the problem of having to catch hunters red-handed. If one has a valid licence to hunt rabbits, then they will obviously be allowed to be out and about with their hunting weapon of choice.
While the physical resources of the ALE have been beefed up slightly, both in terms of manpower and equipment, they are still hopelessly understaffed and cannot possibly keep up with illegal hunting all over Malta and Gozo.
The ALE's summer workload also increases because they will be tasked with patrolling Malta and Gozo in relation to swimming zone regulations. They quite simply cannot cope with patrolling the coastline and trying to keep up with hunters who are abusing the Rabbit Season regulations. There have been calls for the setup of a wildlife crime unit – and this is a very good idea. However, the authorities must resist setting up something which is half baked. The technocrats need to get their thinking caps on and find ways to squeeze funding out of the European Union in order to set up something which really will serve as a deterrent. As Birdlife has stated, it is rather pointless to go to such efforts to suspend spring hunting – only for this loophole to spring up and undo all the hard work.
We will go one further. If such a unit is indeed setup, we should not stop only at wildlife. This unit – like the ALE, should have executive powers in all spheres relating to animals. This could include cases of neglect, dog fighting, cock fighting, abuse of pets and especially, going round pet shops to ensure that animals are, first of all permissible by law to be on sale and secondly, to makes sure that they are kept in good conditions.
If the government does see sense in this idea – and we do believe that it is inevitable, then we urge the authorities to leave the Wildlife Crime Unit under the general umbrella of the Police Corps. We have already seen how people with limited executive powers are abused by the public – wardens being a case in point. Being the strange animal that it is, the Maltese person seems to respect a police badge a lot more – therefore, we must use it.