FKNK say Commission discussions indicate trapping season is possible

Hunting lobby FKNK is claiming it has held formal meetings and personal discussions with EU officials who informed them that the opening of the hunting season for the trapping of Golden Plover and Song Thrush is still possible.

The FKNK has loudly protested the decision by the Office of the Prime Minister to not to open the autumn season for trapping despite a recommendation from the Ornis Committee to allow trappers to live-capture birds. The OPM says Ornis has not enough scientific data to justify a derogation from the EU ban on trapping.

“We’re appealing to government to declare the autumn season open for trapping,” FKNK secretary-general Lino Farrugia said in a statement.

“This would be the first time in history that trapping was banned to the detriment of our culture and social life.”

The FKNK has already filed a judicial protest against the Prime Minister as minister for the environment, for not having declared open season for the trapping of turtle doves, quails, golden plovers and song thrushes.

The FKNK said recommendations from the Malta Ornis Committee, which groups hunters and conservationists BirdLife Malta, to open the trapping season from 1 September 2011 and close on 10 January 2012, were not heeded.

The Office of the Prime Minister has stood by its decision to turn down the Ornis Committee’s recommendation to open the trapping season in autumn, claiming there was insufficient information and data to derogate from the Birds Directive’s ban on finch-trapping.

Trapping was outlawed in 2008 under the Birds Directive but hunters say the Maltese government can derogate from EU law and allow a limited form of trapping.

The FKNK claims the government wants to divide hunters and trappers by not opening the hunting season for trappers.

“All EU Member States, except Malta, have fixed hunting seasons which, for practical and humanitarian reasons, are determined in advance. It is only the present Maltese government that adopts the puerile tactic of leaving it to the last moment to announce the opening of the hunting and trapping seasons.

“It is only this government that adopts the same tactics when it chose to dismiss the recommendations of its own appointed Ornis Committee, and now ‘recommends’ to that same committee, by way of its policy guidelines, what the committee should ‘recommend’ to it,” Farrugia said.