Hunters shoot down framework legislation

Hunters' federation FKNK took the opportunity of the third anniversary of a landmark European Court ruling to slam the government's plans for a limited spring hunting season next year.

"As things stand today, it is clear that we are still far away from applying a fair derogation that reflects both the ruling by the European Court of Justice, as well as the legitimate aspirations of Maltese and Gozitan hunters and trappers," FKNK president Joe Perici Calascione told the press today, at an event commemorating the ruling of September 10.

This date, he added, will go down as a red-letter day in the annals of Maltese hunting and trapping.

Referring to government's decision to arbitrarily set a maximum bag-limit of 20,000 birds (both turtle-dove and quail) for the ongoing autumn season, Perici Calascione argued that the number was not only laughable in itself, but also far below the quota one would arrive at by applying the scientific criteria laid down by the same European Commission the government was officially trying to appease.

"A maximum limit of 20,000 would make sense if the total population of both those species was only around 20 or 30 times higher. But in reality, the population figures for those species in Europe alone are between 8.4 and 14.1 million for quail, and between 10.5 and 21.6 million for turtle-dove..."

According to 2009 data compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) the official figures for the global population of quail was between 35 and 300 million for turtle dove, between 20 and 100 million... leading the IUCN to classify both species as "of least concern".

"It follows therefore that using the criteria established by the ECJ, a bag-limit of under 200,000 turtle-dove ad 300,000 quail could be considered to respect the court ruling," Perici Calascione added. "So why did government set a bag-limit that is 10 times lower?"

Asked specifically what percentage of the two species' global population regularly migrate over Malta, FKNK secretary Lino Farrugia admitted that one could not base Malta's bag-count on global figures alone. But even taking only the minimum number as the basis for calculation, he argued that Malta's maximum bag-limit should still be much higher than 20,000.

"The formula that the Commission uses is to take 1% of the total breeding population. If you had to apply this formula to the populations of quail only in those countries where they tend to migrate over Malta, you would be left with a bag-limit of around 79,000..."

Turning to the regulations drawn up for this year's autumn season (opened September 1) the FKNK complained that government was adding 'more restrictions' than were actually imposed by the either the Commision or the European Court.

Perici Calascione pointed out that according to the implications of the 2009 ECJ ruling, the Commission is concerned with how many birds are shot throughout the season... but not with other aspects, such as setting a limit of the number of specimens shot per hunter, per day.

"That is an imposition from Malta's side, not from Europe. We can't understand why government insists on adding more obstacles than it has to according the court ruling."

Separately, FKNK urged the government to work towards a permanent derogation for the trapping of seven finch species - a practice that has been illegal since EU accession in 2004.

In a symbolic gesture, the federation also released a number of captive-bred turtle doves into the wild at Buskett.