The final score

The two sides in the spring hunting debate have now put forward their various viewpoints. Around the core arguments there has been much invocation of potential threats to “minorities”, matched by protest against exclusion from the spring countryside.  Spring in these islands, said one side, coincides with the April hunting season: a claim rubbished by the other side by pointing out that the spring season extends over “just 20 half days”. 

The legal position has been variously interpreted. Fact: there is no mention of a spring hunting derogation in the Malta-EU accession treaty. The only “bird matter” specifically mentioned has to do with the trapping of song birds which had to be and was indeed phased out by 2007, only to be revived abusively in 2014, with the totally fantastic “allowed quota of 26,850 birds” of various species.

But the letter sent to the electorate before the EU referendum by then-PM Eddie Fenech Adami said quite clearly that nothing was going to change in the hunting scene as Malta would be applying a spring hunting derogation for quail and turtle dove. And Malta did indeed operate a derogation in 2005, 2006 and 2007, at which point it was hauled in front of the European Court of Justice and found guilty of not “affording enough protection for the birds during the spring migration”. This was generally taken to mean lax policing and no well-defined parameters in applying the derogation. Yet there was no clear and unequivocal ban of a derogation.

So Malta tightened the rules, increased oversight, worked out quotas and continued to operate a spring hunting derogation for quail and turtle doves, notice of intent being given every year. In 2009 the European Court refused to accept the case for a derogation based on the bag numbers. 

There is now other evidence to hand which should shake the European Commission out of its sleep. The basis of the derogation – the dearth of birds during autumn compared to spring migration – is not, as the hunters insist, a fixed feature of bird migration. For autumn in 2014 there was a much heavier quail passage than for spring of the same year, even if turtle dove numbers were lower.

There was a puzzling feature: the number of birds shot – the reported bag – was rather small. Hunters seemed to have lost “concentration”; others stayed at home or were hit by bad weather; flocks of quail perversely passed over on Sunday afternoons, or on the days when the season was forcibly closed. This latter at least is disproved by the migration observations, which show large numbers of quail transiting before the closure. Heavy under-reporting is a much more likely explanation. Arguments that the very heavy punishments make under-reporting too risky are futile, given the depleted Administrative Law Enforcement police.

Autumn under-reporting has two ‘advantages’. The first is that the spring quota is based on the previous autumn bag: a low autumn catch translates into a high spring allowance. And in the absence of independent information a small autumn bag emphasises the inadequacy of the autumn migration. The 2014 observations have dented this position. 

There is also a problem with spring reporting. The SMS system shows rather low values for most of the 20-day season and then a strong spike over the last two or three days. That again points to under-reporting, in this case to make sure that the “season” does not come to a premature end through the quota being reached within a week or so. A written warning to its members from FKNK on this matter was hurriedly withdrawn.

As far as general population effects are concerned arguments are less clear, with an amount of cherry-picking on both sides. Hunters point to the general agreement that European populations are still very high and the overall changes of the last couple of decades make the species one of “least concern”. This is combined with the contention that Malta is not under any of the major North-South flyways for bird migration. Even a full-quota catch would still leave it well under the 1% of population deemed to define the level of concern.  

There are potential flaws in these arguments. The first comes from general under-reporting, which keeps the bag numbers well away from the 1% level. But under-reporting in spring has a double effect. Taking the accepted equivalence that 3.5 million pairs represent 10.5 million individuals, the spring bag given in pairs should be multiplied by four or five to give a more proper indication of the effects on population, given the potential loss of nestlings.

Spring bags therefore assume a significantly greater import than that conveyed by reported catch. And the drop in overall numbers of the two species the No-camp mentions has reached significant levels. Precisely that we may be “Maltin u Ewropej”, the vote in the referendum should be a resounding No.