Spring hunting season could turn into free-for-all - BirdLife

Environment NGO BirdLife Malta has accused the government of "executing" a political promise that goes against the spirit of strict supervision and selectivity required for the correct application of a derogation to the Birds Directive.

On Monday evening, Parliamentary Secretary for Animal Rights Roderick Galdes officially confirmed the spring hunting season dates starting 10 April until 30 April. The Labour government has retained the same quota - 11,000 turtledoves and 5,000 quails - but has waived off the €50 special licence fee while hunters are now longer required to wear the armband.

"The wavering of license fees guarantees a free for all spring hunting season reminiscent of seasons which landed Malta guilty in front of the European Court of Justice in 2009, whereas the removal of the mandatory armband will weaken strict supervision and enforcement measures, currently a bone of contention with the European Commission," BirdLife Malta said in a statement.

According to BirdLife, the bag limits must be divided among 10,600 hunters.

"With the blatant abuse of the SMS reporting system we have seen over the past two years, and an average of one turtledove and half a quail for each hunter, we can pretty much assume how much of this season shall be a free for all to everyone," BirdLife Malta's conservation manager Nicholas Barbara said. 

The removal of armbands is another measure which has been proposed, following various plights made by the FKNK to remove this measure of supervision. The armband system had been introduced in 2010 meant to distinguishing hunters licensed to hunt in spring from unlicensed hunters.

The measure had also proven useful to police who could identify licensed hunters from a distance.

"Without the use of armbands, distinction between licensed and unlicensed hunters will be practically impossible, and enforcement has been weakened in this regard," he said.

While spring hunting seasons are banned by the Birds Directive, exceptions can be made through the application of derogation, "to permit, under strictly supervised conditions and on a selective basis, the capture, keeping or other judicious use of certain birds in small numbers."

In 2009, a European Court of Justice ruling had found Malta guilty of not abiding to these conditions when it opened spring hunting seasons in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 open to all licensed hunters and without limits.

Following the ECJ ruling, Malta persisted in the opening of spring hunting seasons issuing framework legislation in 2010, as a result of which the Commission re-opened infringement procedures serving Malta with a first warning in 2011.

The latest warning concerned three shortcomings in the 2010 legislation, namely that there was no consideration of the conservation status of turtledove and quail, there was no link to the number of birds hunted in autumn, and that the quotas considered were too high to ensure sustainability. 

Such a warning had led to a whole revision of spring hunting framework legislation in 2011, which introduced measures such as lower revised bag limits depending on the autumn catches of turtledove and quail, a maximum €50 license fee and strict supervision conditions such as a ratio of sever police officers per 1,000 licensed hunters whereas it kept measures such as the mandatory armband and a special spring hunting license fee.

"This same framework legislation formed the basis of the 2011 and 2012 spring hunting seasons in subsequent years, to which, to date, the European Commission did not step up neither did it reiterate ongoing infringement proceedings," BirdLife said.

"Following an agreement reached between the Labour and FKNK before the general election, a Labour in government is now proposing further revisions to this framework legislation, wavering the special spring hunting license which was introduced as a measure of selectivity to the circa 10,600 licensed hunters in Malta."

Turning his attention to last Saturday's meeting of the Ornis Committee,

Nicholas Barbara said that "whereas BirdLife Malta voted against the opening of a spring hunting season, the Ornis Committee certainly did not in any way vote for the relaxation of controls such as the removal of armbands and license fees, which the current framework legislation does not allow anyway."