The hunting lobby has lost all credibility

The events of the past few days may well mark a turning point in the political fortunes of hunters and trappers as an organised lobby group.

Reacting to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s intervention to close this year’s autumn hunting season, hunters descended upon Valletta for a protest that quickly degenerated into a violent fracas: a journalist and photographer were assaulted, as were a number of birdwatchers in Buskett. One man was savagely beaten, and his camera stolen and destroyed, in front of children as young as seven.

Even before this disgraceful display of barbarism, hunters had repeatedly and consistently flouted the law by targeting protected species such as storks, herons and birds of prey. One can therefore only laud the resolve shown by Muscat under the circumstances; even if his decision seems to contradict the government’s earlier, more accommodating stance.

As such, the closure of the autumn season makes most sense when viewed in the context of the imminent grilling of Maltese Commissioner-designate Karmenu Vella.

Vella has been earmarked for the environment portfolio, and has already been tasked with ‘updating’ the European Wild Birds and Habitats directives. The recent massacre of protected birds in his home country, and above all the abject failure of Malta’s law enforcement capability to restrain the rampant excesses of illegal hunting, would surely have proved a stumbling block during his hearing before the European parliament next Monday.

Even if one assumes that this was the motivation behind the decision, the prime minister nonetheless deserves support for finally putting his foot down in the face of an unruly and incorrigible coterie of violent thugs. And while both AD and PN have rightly criticised the government for its earlier capitulation to the hunting lobby, the fact that both these political parties have also applauded the decision should sound alarm bells in hunting associations such as the FKNK, which represent hunters and trappers at political level.

AD has of course always opposed concessions to hunters, and as such its position today is entirely consistent with its generally anti-hunting stance. When in government, however, the PN had likewise attempted to woo the hunters with similar concessions… this was in fact the dynamic which had allowed the hunters to successfully blackmail successive governments of either hue into acceding to their demands.

But suddenly the situation has been thrust into reverse gear. The hunters who protested last Sunday have vowed to never vote Labour again, burnt PL flags and even attacked the Valletta Labour Party club. But they can no longer play the usual card of threatening to vote for the opposition instead. For one thing, the hunters have already burnt their boats with the PN over previous similar decisions. And with the opposition now backing the government over the closure of the season, a bipartisan consensus has emerged not to give in to political blackmail any longer.

Effectively, the hunters have just shot their entire political bargaining platform to smithereens.

The lobby emerges a loser for other reasons, too. Until last Sunday, groups such as the FKNK and St Hubert’s Hunters had managed to secure a generally advantageous position for themselves: the Ornis Committee had agreed to remove a 3pm curfew to protect migratory birds of prey, and even to reintroduce trapping. The hunters’ only commitment was to ensure that this controversial season went ahead in a civilised and law-abiding manner. This, however, they proved totally incapable of doing… suggesting that the hunting organisations have no real control over a large portion of Malta’s hunting confraternity to begin with.

Hunters therefore have only themselves to blame for the government’s decision; yet they now blame everybody but themselves. And by taking to the streets, running amok and assaulting journalists and birdwatchers, they have also succeeded in exasperating and irritating a nation which had hitherto been mostly lukewarm on the entire hunting issue.

The tide of popular feeling has now decidedly turned against the hunters’ cause; and with a referendum on spring hunting to be held shortly, this sudden nosedive in popularity is likely to come back to haunt them in the near future.

Faced with all this, the FKNK – Malta’s largest hunting association – reacted in arguably the worst way imaginable. Barring a perfunctory and highly unconvincing ‘condemnation’ of the incidents, the FKNK appeared to condone this disgraceful behaviour by saying that it “understood the hunters’ frustration”. It is also seeking to overturn the decision by taking the government to court, on the risible premise that the government somehow needed its own permission to close the season.

This argument is absurd, as ultimately it is the government that decides on such matters. Consultation with the interested parties is a convention, not a legal obligation. In fact, when the Nationalist government likewise abruptly closed the spring season in 2007, it did so (quite rightly) without any such consultation at all.

This in turn suggests that it is not just the case that a minority of hunters behave in an arrogant, anarchic, violent and uncontrollable way… but their official representatives also come across as irascible, unreasonable and unwilling to brook any criticism.

In the end, it would seem the hunters have turned their guns onto themselves.