We refer to recent reports on the government’s decision to defend the spring hunting season. Why should the government be on the defensive if everything it did was above board? Does it have to defend itself for doing what it has not only a right, but an ethical and moral duty to do? The more the government talks on its spring hunting decision, the deeper it sinks in mire.

According to the government, the facts were simple. Indeed, so simple in fact that there should have been no cause for the Maltese prime minister to consult anybody except the Malta Ornis Committee (O.C.), the one body set up specifically to advise it on such matters. The committee’s recommendations erred against the hunters and trappers. Yet they were “workable” and much closer to attaining the ‘satisfactory alternative’ principle accepted by the ECJ than Dr Gonzi’s carrot. The prime minister relegated the O.C. recommendations to the nebulous future. Dr Gonzi’s derogation is entirely political, and has no basis in scientific fact. His purely political move is an insult to the Ornis Committee and the FKNK and flies in the face of all the hard work they put in to present fair and reasonable proposals based on factual scientific data. Dr Gonzi chose to consult with the EU Commission, the institution that had taken him to court in the first place. It is inconceivable that he could have got the approval he may have sought from a Commission that is under intense pressure from fanatical abolitionists, besides being extremely disappointed with the ECJ concession to Malta’s hunters.

The government has stated that talks will continue with the EU. Talks with the EU had been held before accession and everything was supposed to have been cleared up and decided. What is the point of further talks? All Dr Gonzi had to do were chiefly two things: go by the Ornis recommendations, and set up a solid framework to apply a spring hunting derogation correctly, with emphasis on the “strict control” condition.

The final falsehood is “The government said that those numbers and dates were established after studies of the breeding population in the EU and migration patterns”. If this statement were true, will the government please explain how these same studies are going to fit the increased numbers and the increased dates it intends to apply for the spring of next year?

It is about time that Lawrence Gonzi realises that where the hunting issue is concerned, playing at politics will only push him deeper in the mud.

Lino Farrugia

Secretary - FKNK