Putting all the anti-hunting hype about Maltese hunters killing what the British call “our birds” into perspective will undoubtedly prove that many have been fooled. Being British, Birdlife’s Steve Micklewright depicted Malta’s small hunting illegalities problem and the legal shooting of 16,000 birds in spring as a matter of British concern, even raising the matter in the House of Commons thanks to an obliging MP from BirdLife’s British partner, the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

In a span of a few weeks, Brian May, Bill Oddie and Chris Packham, all anti-hunting activists brought over to Malta and photographed with Steve Micklewright to prove their close ties, spewed their nonsense about the effects of Maltese hunting on Britain’s birds on the Maltese and British public.

The proverbial phrase “tip of the iceberg”, infallibly used by BirdLife Malta to describe a “bird catastrophe” or “bird hell”, is never substantiated by more than a dozen incidents and a spate of bad publicity by the accommodating media. If indeed the problem were as rampant as perceived, surely thousands of photographs or carcasses would prove such claims. This not being the case only proves BirdLife’s deceit and manipulation of the ignorant that are foolish enough to believe such garbage.

British cats, according to the RSPB, account for 55 million bird kills out of a total of 275 million prey items a year. Notwithstanding this alarming fact, the RSPB state “there is no scientific evidence that predation by cats in gardens is having any impact on bird populations UK-wide.” http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/gardening/unwantedvisitors/cats/birddeclines.aspx

It is only BirdLife Malta and their servile imported comedians that want all to believe the few thousands of birds shot by hunters in Malta are cause for concern. Lest we forget, Birdlife Malta as part of the Coalition against Spring Hunting, aptly named CASH, need all the public and financial support they can muster for their attempt to ban legal spring hunting by means of an abrogative referendum to succeed. They managed 40,000 signatures and now attempt to collect €100,000, €55,000 of which was effortlessly collected by Chris Packham, in order to convince others to vote.

With Birdlife and CASH having no leg to stand on other than deceit and the support of confirmed anti-hunters, are we to witness an abrogative referendum where abolitionists, deceit and easy money dictate what a minority can legally practice? Unless they perceive more of an advantage from a fooled presumably growing anti hunting public, our democratically elected politicians that declared they would not interfere in the issue had better redefine democracy since so far their support for legal spring hunting they vociferously defend has certainly been unconvincing.

Mark Mifsud Bonnici

President

Saint Hubert Hunters