The Ornis committee will recomment a “short” spring hunting season in Apri, the hunting federation said on Wednesday.

It said the committee had agreed with the proposal put forward by its representatives “and will recommend to the Minister that a derogation be applied to permit turtle dove and quail hunting for a short period, under strict supervision and for very small numbers in April 2022.”

FKNK said it will give more details during a press conference on Thursday.

Birdlife Malta said that, a week and a half from a general election, the ORNIS Committee has this evening voted in favour of lifting the moratorium on the spring hunting of European Turtle-dove (Gamiema) as from this year’s spring hunting season.

The meeting, which started at 4pm, ended with a vote between the Committee members. Five members voted in favour of the removal of the moratorium, BirdLife Malta voted against and there was one abstention. The moratorium had been introduced as from the 2017 spring hunting season.
ORNIS has also decided that this year’s spring hunting season for European Turtle-dove should run from 17 to 30 April 2022 and the national bag limit should be of 1,500 birds. This vote was approved with five ORNIS Committee members voting in favour, one (BirdLife Malta) against, and one abstention.
On the spring hunting of Common Quail (Summiena), it was decided that the spring hunting season should run between 10 and 30 April 2022 with a national bag limit of 2,400 birds. In this case there were six votes in favour and one, BirdLife Malta’s, against.

“These recommendations will now be made to the the government, who has to accept, and officially announce this year’s spring hunting season details.”
“This means that as widely anticipated, following pressure from the hunting lobby, the vulnerable Turtle-dove will start being hunted again in spring in Malta, when it is on its way to its breeding grounds. While all of Europe is protecting this endangered species from extinction, with some European countries also stopping hunting on this bird even in autumn, Malta will be killing it during spring, hunting it down a few days before it reaches its breeding grounds.”