Heard the one about the parliamentary secretary for animal rights?

Does anyone remember the last time the Parliamentary Secretary for Animal Rights actually said or did anything to safeguard the rights of animals in this country? Reason I ask is that he’s been reported in the press a lot of late… and in all cases, Roderick Galdes has spoken out only to defend those leisure or commercial human activities that involve killing or capturing the same animals he is supposedly sworn to protect.

One recent example was last week, when Galdes headed a delegation to Brussels to demand higher national quotas for bluefin tuna. A fine example of animal rights protection in action, don’t you think? Mediterranean population levels of bluefin tuna had only just registered a slight improvement, after commercial overfishing had driven the species to the brink of stocks collapse. And the only reason this scenario was averted was because of a recovery plan that involved lowering the national quotas of countries that fish for bluefin tuna.

Yet no sooner is it announced that the species is no longer at imminent risk, than out pops Roderick Galdes, Malta’s parliamentary secretary for animal rights, to demand that our national quota is reconfigured to the same levels that had caused the threat of extinction in the first place.

What does that tell us about his (and, by extension, his government’s) commitment to protect animals? And what does it tell us about the ‘rights’ of these animals, exactly?

Clearly, Roderick Galdes is of the opinion that the Mediterranean bluefin tuna has a ‘right’ to be caught in greater numbers. It is in the species’ own interest to be commercially exploited to the maximum level possible. How else to explain the fact that our parliamentary secretary for animal rights is so blatantly asking for more of these animals to be killed?

Well, actually there is another explanation. Roderick Galdes is also the parliamentary secretary for fisheries… and this was the hat he chose to wear on this particular occasion.

And here is where the problem swims into view. It is after all, legitimate for the junior minister responsible for fisheries to represent the interests of the Maltese tuna industry at European level. One can argue that his approach is short-sighted and will ultimately cause more problems for the same industry in the long term (for very obvious reasons, too: if the species is once again allowed to be overfished, it will go straight back to its endangered status… and apart from the tuna itself, nobody will be harder hit by this than the people who make a living fishing for it commercially.)

But that’s just a divergence of opinion as to what constitutes the real interests of the fisheries sector. In the shorter term, nobody can really argue that the parliamentary secretary for fisheries had no right to represent that sector at all. He might not be doing his job very effectively – in fact, all he is doing is acting as a mouthpiece for the Malta federation of aquaculture - but he is still technically doing his job.

The trouble is that it’s the only part of his job that seems to even remotely interest him. At what point in his career has Roderick Galdes ever worn the other hat that also came with his portfolio? The one labelled ‘animal rights’… which also involves fighting on behalf of wildlife against the voracious greed of humans who never look beyond their own immediate interests?

By my count: never. The ‘animal rights’ hat is in fact still hanging on its hat-stand in the ministry lobby. He has never even tried it on. And if he ever does, and pauses to admire his reflection in a mirror… well, he might notice what anyone outside that ministry can see from a million miles off. It doesn’t fit. And it can’t ever be made to fit, either, when the man supposed to be wearing it also wears two other completely incompatible items of political headgear at the same time.

Because fisheries is not the only one of Galdes’ other political hats. He is also the parliamentary secretary for agriculture. He represents the interests of an industry which is locked in permanent conflict with the entire animal rights sector, mostly on account of such issues as battery farms, transportation of livestock, abattoir standards, pesticides and many more. Wearing all three hats simultaneously is very clearly out of the question. You would have to somehow represent the interests of both farmers and farmyard animals, fishermen and fish, hunters and birds, and so on. Even a small child would immediately identify that as an impossibility; yet nobody in government seems capable of even noticing such a conspicuous conflict of roles.

Does Galdes himself see it? No, of course not. You can’t see how silly a hat looks on you if you’ve never even worn it. And this is precisely why he stolidly refuses to ever make any statement – still less devise any policies or draw up any laws – in his other, virtually non-existent capacity. He knows that if he ever does start speaking out in favour of animal rights in this country, he will immediately fall foul of the powerful lobbies whose interests weigh in at the opposite end of the spectrum. So he has made a conscious effort to forget entirely that any other part of his job description even exists.

And here another problem comes into play. Only this time it flies, not swims, into the picture.

When it comes to fisheries and agriculture, Galdes does at least have an excuse. No one can deny that those two sectors are his own direct political responsibility. They came with the title of his secretariat: he was given those hats to wear, and therefore has every right to wear them.

But hunting and trapping? How on earth did Galdes come to view hunting and trapping as part of his parliamentary remit? How does he configure the definitions of ‘fisheries, agriculture and animal rights’ to make them also include the interests of a lobby group that very clearly doesn’t fit into any of those categories, and which is diametrically opposed to at least one of them?

This time I don’t have any answers. There is no visible excuse at all. Hunting is to Galdes’ portfolio what offshore banking is to the ministry of culture, arts and sport. We’d all be scratching our heads in bewilderment if the arts and culture ministry was suddenly entrusted with policy-making responsibilities in the financial services sector. Why should we not scratch our heads when the man responsible for agriculture and fisheries (and especially animal rights) draws up national legislation on hunting and trapping?

And that’s before even looking at the legislation he drew up. Evidently it wasn’t enough that a junior minister simply annexed to his portfolio an area that shouldn’t be there at all… he also made such a complete and utter hash of it that Malta is once again facing infringement proceedings by the European Commission, specifically over actions and decisions taken by Roderick Galdes.

It was Galdes, for instance, who came up with the idea of applying a derogation for the trapping of an entire category of supposedly ‘protected’ bird: in particular, seven species of wild finch. And to achieve this aim he not only perverted his own portfolio, but he also twisted and mutilated European law beyond recognition, too.

Once again, the argument revolves around a disputed half-sentence in a European Court ruling on a completely unrelated topic (spring hunting), which Galdes has tried to hammer out of shape so that it could be made to fit another, hopelessly incompatible context.

The half-sentence in question involves an acknowledgement by the European court that – in the case of hunting for turtle dove and quail in spring – ‘no satisfactory solution’ existed because the numbers of those birds registered in autumn are too low to be considered an alternative to shooting them in spring.

One can naturally agree or disagree with the interpretation of the court ruling in question. I for one do not interpret it as a carte blanche to allow shooting in spring; on the contrary, if the numbers are too low to shoot in autumn – and the two birds in question are classed as ‘under threat’ in Europe – the conclusion is very clearly that turtle dove and quail should not be shot at all.

In any case: Galdes has now chosen to apply that same reasoning to trapping… but there is a significant difference between the two scenarios. The European Wild Birds Directive permits hunting of turtle dove and quail in autumn. And once you establish that these birds can indeed be legally shot at other times of the year, it becomes possible (even if debatable) to see how the ‘satisfactory solution’ argument can be applied.

It doesn’t work for trapping, however. The European Wild Birds Directive does not permit trapping of wild finches at any time of the year. Arguments involving numbers in autumn or spring are actually irrelevant… as are arguments about adequate levels of law enforcement. There can be no ‘satisfactory solution’ to trapping, because the entire practice is in itself considered ‘unsatisfactory’.

But of course, Galdes went ahead and devised regulations to permit this illegal practice anyway, thus incurring infringement proceedings by the European Commission. And even here, the resulting law is about as full of holes as your average finch-trapping net.

According to the new regulations, trappers are allowed a total bag limit of 10 specimens a season. 10 specimens out of seven trappable species, don’t forget. The same regulations also permit licensed trappers to operate four trapping sites measuring 38 square metres each, every day for two months between the 20th October and 31st December.

If past seasons are anything to go by, there may be as many as 5,000 licensed trappers in the coming season. Each can operate up to 152 square metres’ worth of nets, for a total of 760,000 square metres.

And all to catch a measly 10 birds apiece, over a period of nine weeks.

Were it not for the depressingly real nature of the above, farcical state of affairs, I would have assumed the whole thing was a joke. And in a sense perhaps it is. After all, what else can you call a man who first accepts the title of custodian of animal welfare, then spends two years ensuring that animals are afforded as little protection as possible under Maltese law?

It’s a joke, obviously. Not a very funny one, but a joke all the same.