The Times’ journalist Natalino Fenech has told the EU’s Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas that Maltese and Gozitan hunters and trappers “catch and kill them (birds) because they want to be close to them,” he said in an entry in Dimas’s blog.
The journalist said the Commission “has to find a way, and work with the government and the willing NGOs, to implement a strong educational program with local hunters and trappers.”
Describing himself as someone who has campaigned against illegal hunting, Fenech is also known in conservation circles for his sour relations with Birdlife Malta. His controversial book Fatal Flight, which lists the estimated number of birds hunted and trapped in Malta, has been equally criticised by both hunters and bird conservationists for its exaggerated figures.
In his entry to the Commissioner’s blog, Natalino Fenech naively suggests to Dimas, “… why not try to work on programs (sic) to involve hunters and trappers, giving them the possibility to be close to birds but not necessarily by killing them?”
In the past hunters and trappers have suggested that they should be allowed to ring wild birds, a proposal strongly opposed by Birdlife Malta.
Other projects as the quail breeding and finch breeding projects run by hunters have either failed or simply never got off the ground. BirdLife argue that bird ringing cannot be carried out by people who are more interested in bird collections and without a scientific background.
But Dimas must have been giggling when he read yet another comment from Fenech: “This may sound strange but no hunters or trappers hate birds.”