Although the archaic tradition of holding a ‘day of silence’ before polling day is about as useful, in today’s internet-connected world, as a chocolate teapot, that is not the day of silence in focus here.

The focus here is not 10 April, but 14 April – the day that this year’s spring hunting season will open, or a day of silence from hunters’ shotguns, depending on Saturday’s referendum result.

Should the former come to pass, it would be yet another large dent in this country’s environmental credibility. This country, as a whole, would have condoned the highly questionable practice of hunting down birds en route to their spring breeding grounds, in utter violation and disregard of the cardinal rule of species conservation the world over.

Only this time, it will not be the government that would be held responsible, but, rather, the whole of the Maltese population. The fallout across Europe will be extremely negative. The bad press, particularly in the UK and Germany, Malta’s main tourism markets, will begin rolling once again and the country will be depicted as no more than a bunch of bloodthirsty savages.

But, we stress, this is not about Europe, this is about Malta. We do not necessarily need to conform with the rest of the EU on every single issue and, in fact, we do not insofar as red line issues such as abortion and the country’s military neutrality are concerned.

Malta stands firm on these issues in the face of its EU peers because it is what the majority of the population believes in. In a way, right or wrong, these issues are very much part of the country’s genetic makeup and we would also venture to assume that the vast majority of the Maltese population agrees with those stances.

Not so with the issue of spring hunting. Here we are speaking about a maximum of 20,000 hunters, if that. Very conservatively speaking, this represents five per cent of the population – enough to sway a general election under normal circumstances, but certainly not enough to justify the multifaceted negative effect that the continuation of spring hunting has on the nation as a whole – in terms of its reputation, safe access to public land in the countryside, and the protection of the little wildlife that calls this country home either permanently or fleetingly each spring and autumn.

Given that, 95 per cent of the population directly or indirectly suffers in one way or another for a seriously environmentally-questionable practice undertaken by the other five per cent and from which they derive absolutely no benefit whatsoever. It is not as though fresh turtledove or quail are on restaurant menus, nor will they ever be given bag limits of two birds per hunter for the whole of the season.

And in full knowledge of these indisputable facts, hunters’ lobbies have embarked on a campaign of pure and unadulterated misinformation and disinformation.

They have attempted to rope in others, such as amateur fishermen, fireworks enthusiasts, horse owners and who knows who else into their dubious coalition, with the false threat that other ‘hobbies’ will suffer the same fate of spring hunting should next weekend’s referendum prove successful. 

And despite the fact that this line of argumentation has been rubbished by a group of the country’s best legal minds, they still pursue this line of argumentation because, quite honestly, the ‘Yes’ campaign has little more than this hollow, wooden leg to stand on. That, and the utterly false argument that other European countries allow “thousands” of similar derogations in spring. 

That may be true but the devil lies in the detail: these derogations the hunters’ lobbies speak of concern issues that are of no concern whatsoever to hunters. These include derogations in the interest of: the protection of flora and fauna; research and teaching; public health and safety; small numbers for use in aviculture, falconry and human consumption; and the prevention of serious damage to crops, livestock and fisheries.

It is surprising that even the prime minister was misled, as he recently said that the Maltese should be equal to other Europeans vis-à-vis spring hunting derogations.

This issue is not about other countries’ legitimate derogations, it is about access to our countryside and the protection of our wildlife. This is about protecting our natural heritage, specifically the great bird migration that Malta is treated to every spring and every autumn, which is truly a magnificent sight to behold.

And, more than anything else, this is about conservation - about giving all bird species the chance to breed and replenish their numbers before running the risk of being shot out of the skies over Malta and elsewhere come autumn.

Whatever anyone may argue, this is also not just about the turtledove and quail that Malta applies a derogation from EU rules each year to hunt. Like it or not, many other protected species are also caught in the crossfire with and without the authorities’ knowledge - bird species that are protected because they are endangered for one reason or another. But more often than not, these protected species are endangered because of past transgressions by hunters themselves, not just in Malta, but all along their migratory routes. 

While it is patently unfair to tarnish all hunters, the atrocities that are committed spring after spring in which protected species are shot from the skies cannot be denied and hardly need to be elaborated upon here. Nor can it be denied that if there is no hunting in spring allowed, there will be no shooting of any species at all before they are given their natural chance to breed.

Hunters put the spring season down to a mere few half-days in spring. But those few half-days in spring enjoyed by less than five per cent of the population carry multiple negative effects that the rest of the population is being asked to “tolerate”. The fact of the matter, however, is that spring hunting should no longer be “tolerated” by the remaining 95 per cent.

It is high time that those few half-days in spring are ushered into the annals of history where they belong. As a society, we share the collective responsibility to do just that next Saturday.