While Malta celebrates the feast of St Julian today (31 August), for many this day is not that much of a celebration, being the last day our Maltese countryside will be spared from the incessant sound and intrusion of shotguns for the next five months. That is because tomorrow (1 September) the ‘autumn’ hunting season for 2014 will be declared open to about 10,500 hunters. As a referendum to abolish hunting in spring approaches, this five month ‘autumn’ hunting season will be the most contentious we have ever seen in the history of the bird hunting saga in Malta.
For those with religious faith, the church has many celebratory figures for all sorts of aspects of life or experiences and hunting is one of them. St Julian is revered for having been a hunter and is therefore regarded by the hunting community as their patron saint. In our typical festa atmosphere, celebrating the patron saint is not something to miss and we will, as usual, witness the various hunters – members of the hunters’ federation, the FKNK – shooting blanks to salute their saint from the church this evening in St Julian’s.
In a recent press release, the FKNK called upon its members to attend this yearly ritual and there is an added twist this year: a number of turtle doves bred in captivity will be released. Yes, turtle doves – the very same birds for which the hunting season opens the very next morning. It is the very bird prized so much by hunters that our country has had politicians, general elections and the police force compromised, along with endless negotiations with the European Commission, to open a spring hunting season for them. The gross hypocrisy of releasing doves, the symbol of peace, the very day before the mass slaughter of turtle doves begins is little more than a very sick joke.
This hypocrisy is magnified when you consider that the activity is most certainly illegal because it requires a permit from Mepa. Enquiries I have made seem to indicate that no permit has been sought. If recent events are anything to go by, then surely those who release these birds will be rapidly brought before the courts for breaking the rules. After all, that is what has happened to me. Apparently, I have been accused of breaking the law for handling a protected bird that was illegally shot by hunters. If I can be brought before the courts for trying to save a bird’s life, then surely these hunters should also be prosecuted. I will not hold my breath.
Conservationists here in Malta now expect to be harassed and bullied by the authorities after they receive letters from the FKNK’s legal representatives demanding that they stop conservationists from bringing the plight of birds to public attention. Indeed, one might expect that this release of turtle doves in St Julian’s will actually be done with the blessing of the Animal Rights Parliamentary Secretary, who has himself participated in such releases, and of his Wild Birds Regulation Unit and Mepa which, to date, have not raised a single finger at regulating this activity.
As is the case with many festas, the external celebrations do little to reflect the proper cause for celebration. And indeed the celebratory dove release is a precursor to the months of celebrations for hunters ahead. First in line is the permanent removal of the September 3pm hunting curfew, put in place originally to protect birds of prey coming in their masses to rest for the night on our islands.
The overall result here is more hunting time for hunters at a time when genuine legal hunting is not really practiced. Ask any turtle dove hunter who is keen on his game and see whether he would miss any morning in the coming days, for that is the time that these birds are flying over Malta, not the afternoons. Of course, mind you ask the same hunter about the numbers he has caught – you can be sure they will be few enough to open another spring hunting season next year.
Next in line for celebration will be in October when the trapping season opens. This time we are not talking about the unnecessary and barbaric practice of placing birds that can anyway be hunted in a cage (gabjetta) to lure others, as was the case with the much contested trapping seasons for the golden plover and the song thrush. This October’s novelty takes on a whole new dimension with the return of trapping little song birds for the gabjetta. A few thousand trappers will be out there for a whole two months with their four trapping sites awaiting their 10 finches – the limit the government has sold to the European Commission as being the strictly supervised finch trapping season. As fireworks light up the sky, swathes of land are getting cleared as we speak to make way for nets of all dimensions: fire, herbicides and other innovative means employed by our very own hunter/trapper community.
As our awareness and knowledge of the environment increases, and as we continue to decry the lack of diversity and wildlife our country offers, maybe this hypocrisy of captive doves released on one day to be shot the following morning; of finches singing loud in our piazzas from their small cages when they should be singing free in the countryside, and blanks fired by our hunters at village festas is what we are really all about in this country. It is a real pity that NGOs such as BirdLife Malta continue to offer an alternative to the views peddled by hunters, an alternative that includes freedom and peace for doves and people alike. And please make sure you don’t comment on this item in a way that upsets hunters, or even share it on Facebook, because if you do you may join me in being in the firing line of the data protection legislation or the Police Commissioner if you do.
Nicholas Barbara is BirdLife Malta’s Conservation Manager