Hunters, accusing Birdlife of ‘handling dead birds’. Whatever next?

Ok, let me try and work this one out for myself. Last Thursday, BirdLife Malta staged a symbolic protest against this year’s Spring hunting season for Turtle Dove – scheduled to open tomorrow, 17 April – by placing a dead specimen of that particular bird on the steps of Castille.

The carcass itself, we were told, “had been found by a member of the public earlier during the day in Delimara: a notorious illegal hunting spot.” And while that doesn’t really amount to ‘cast-iron evidence’, that the unfortunate bird was indeed – as claimed by BLM – the victim of illegal hunting, in that particlar vicinity....

... let’s face it: we don’t really need to ‘conduct an autopsy’ to find out, do we now?

Leaving aside that the cause of death, in such cases, is usually paintakingly obvious, even at at a glance (let’s face it: there are only so many ways to explain the presence of ‘bloody, lead-pellet-sized HOLES’ on a dead bird’s carcass; and – sorry, FKNK! – ‘suicide-by-self-inflicted-firearm-wounds’ isn’t exactly among the most convincing.)

But no matter: the issue here is not whether this particular specimen of Turtle Dove was shot ‘illegally’, or otherwise. (After all, it will be suddenly become perfectly ‘legal’ to shoot that exact same bird - just like that, from one moment to the next - at precisely 4 o’ clock tomorrow morning.)

And, besides: it’s not as though Birdlife’s action, last Thursday, even had very much to do with that one, solitary specimen of Turtle Dove, at all... or even, for that matter, with the entire issue of ‘illegal hunting’, in all its myriad manifestations.

In fact: you could almost say it’s the clean other way round. As the hunters’ federation itself correctly surmised, in its otherwise OTT reaction (more of which later): the act of ceremonially ‘dumping’ a dead Turtle Dove, on the doorstep of the Office of the Prime Minister, was very clearly intended to symbolise a far greater ‘crime against wildlife’, than the one that was evidently perpetrated in Delimara last Thursday.

Quite obviously, Birdlife Malta was also trying to draw Robert Abela’s attention to the much more serious atrocity, that his own government is willingly committing – even now, as we speak – by permitting the legal hunting, under any circumstances whatsoever, of a bird which is officially classified as... ‘at risk of EXTINCTION’, no less!

(And in the middle of Spring, too: you know, just to make sure that as few of these endangered birds as possible, actually make it back to their European breeding grounds to ‘reproduce’...)

But anyway: I won’t similarly ‘reproduce’ all the arguments I’ve already made, in recent articles, on this particular issue. Let’s just say, for now, that the whole point of Birdlife Malta’s little ‘stunt’, last Thursday, was to highlight that:

a) the real problem, in this particular context, happens to concern hunting of the LEGAL – as opposed to ILLEGAL – variety, and;

b) the issue itself is also entirely ‘legal’, in nature: in the sense that government’s actions are not just indefensible, from a purely wildlife-conservation point of view... but they are also, quite frankly, ILLEGAL, from any particular perspective you care to name.

And that, by the way, brings me to around the only part the FKNK’s reaction with which I actually agree. Yes, the federation is quite right to accuse Birdlife Malta of ‘attempting to influence the law-courts’, in a case which was scheduled to commence that same day... and which, after all, BLM had filed itself: with the specific aim of overturning what it (quite rightly) regards as a ‘flagrant breach of local and international law’.

Now: it remains somewhat unclear to me, why the FKNK should suddenly find this particular strategy so utterly ‘deplorable’... when the same federation has such a long history of exerting ‘undue pressure’, all of its own (not just on the law-courts, by the way: but also on the Ornis Committee; the Wild Birds Regulations Unit; and pretty much every single administration of government – Labour, or Nationalist - since around 1977, at the earliest.)

But let’s leave that aside, for now; because the most interesting part comes later.  Not content with having already accused Birdlife Malta, of an ‘unfair tactic’ it has resorted to so often itself – the FKNK went on to accuse the same organisation of another crime... and a REAL one, this time!

So very ‘real’, in fact, that the federation even reported Birdlife officials to the police, for - seriously, though: if you haven’t heard this already, you might think I’m making it all up - ‘BEING IN POSSESSION OF A DEAD BIRD [!!!]’

Yes, indeed, folks: we now have further confirmation – and from the FKNK itself, no less – that ‘being in possession of a dead bird’ is actually ILLEGAL, in this country... even if (let’s be honest, now) it is also what every single one of FKNK’s own members  - including all the officials who actually wrote that press statement - will eagerly wake up in the hope of doing themselves, at precisely 4 o’clock tomorrow morning.

Not to mention what some Maltese hunters have already been doing – or trying to do, anyway - ever since this year’s spring Turtle Dove migration even began: ‘handling dead birds’.... you know: just like the FKNK reported Birdlife to the police for doing, this week:  even if those ‘criminal’ BLM officials were actually trying to draw attention to a very real ‘wildlife crime’, that had been only just been committed (and I’ll give you a hint: members of Birdlife Malta do not feature very prominently, in the list of ‘usual suspects’.)

But OK, Ok: I know what some of you are probably thinking right now. “Hang on a second: didn’t you yourself (that is, ‘me, myself’) just write - only a few sentences further up - that it will be ‘perfectly legal’ to shoot Turtle Dove, once the season officially opens tomorrow? And if so: doesn’t that also imply that Maltese hunters might actually have a point, when they argue – or so it seems, anyway - that ‘handling dead birds’ is only considered ‘illegal’, in this country... insofar as it actually infringes any existing laws and regulations, as mandated by the government of Malta?”

And, well...  yes, I suppose. There certainly is a degree of logic, to that particular argument; except that - how can I even put this? – it just so happens to be the exact same type of logic, that underpinned Birdlife Malta’s entire ‘symbolic’ protest in the first place! (And – more pertinently still – its court-action for a warrant of prohibitory injunction against this year’s Spring hunting season: specifically, on the grounds that... well, what do you know? It ‘infringes existing laws and regulations’! Fancy that...).

Meanwhile - just in case you think I’m making this part up, too - this is how the European Commission’s ‘Habitats Committee’ put it, when it met to discuss this very issue last month: “in view of the continuing declining trend of the Turtle Dove population in the Central-Eastern flyway, the Commission considers that [Malta’s spring hunting derogation] is contrary to the Birds Directive, and the efforts by the Commission and the Task Force to recover this species across all EU Member States.”

Not only that: but this year’s derogation is already subject to ongoing EU infringement proceedings, even as we speak; and if the season goes on to actually open tomorrow, as originally planned... the next step will almost certainly be a case against Malta in the European Court of Justice.

Naturally, I wouldn’t dare predict the actual outcome of any such eventuality, from now... just as I will not presume to dictate how Mr Justice Giovanni Grixti should adjudicate the local case, in a verdict that is also expected to come out tomorrow.

One thing I CAN safely say, however, is that: this is the second time, in as many years, that Birdlife Malta has resorted to the same type of legal action, to prevent the Spring Turtle Dove season from opening...

.. and while last year’s case was eventually thrown out on a mere technicality – specifically, because it had been filed AFTER the legal notice was already in force (leaving the courts powerless to overturn it) – well, it seems that Birdlife Malta was careful not to repeat the same mistake, this time round.

The bottom line is that – provided, of course, that no other ‘technicality’ crops up in the meantime – the law-courts will now have to assess this case on its purely LEGAL merits, for a change.

In a nutshell, Judge Grixti must now decide whether Malta’s government actually ‘broke European law’, by openly defying a Directive that very explicitly precludes ‘hunting in Spring’ (and especially, by applying a derogation - or pretending to, anyway - that the Commission itself has already made abundantly clear is ILLEGAL, in the case of endangered species such as the Turtle Dove...)

And by the same token: this also means that the proponents of Malta’s spring hunting season, for that particular species of bird – namely: government, and the FKNK – must likewise now come up with ‘LEGAL’ responses, to these (and other) arguments...

... and if the best the FKNK could come up with, so far, is to argue that: “Other people should be ARRESTED, for doing precisely what we ourselves will be doing – legally, this time - from next Monday, onwards...”

Well, what I can say? I can’t wait to hear what they’re going to come up with next.