Hunters accuse ‘extremist’ BirdLife of wanting to abolish hunting

FKNK chief executive Lino Farrugia warns that BirdLife's 'extremist' attitude to hunting can never lead to reconciliation betweem the two sides 

The hunters’ federation (FKNK) has accused BirdLife of adopting an “extremist” attitude and of intending to abolish Maltese hunting and trapping.

“This extremist BirdLife attitude can never lead to any sort of reconciliation between the two sides,” FKNK chief executive Lino Farrugia said. “We hope that the politicians, but also the general public, will now come to recognize which of the two organisations is an extremist and always up-in-arms.”

He was reacting to BirdLife’s rejection of a recent court claim that “there are benefits to legal hunting” and that hunting in Malta “simply decimates biodiversity and is simply carried out for the pleasure to kill”.

Magistrate Francesco Depasquale on Monday dismissed a 2009 libel suit filed by BirdLife against the FKNK over the hunting federation’s accusation that it had “infiltrated the education department”.

The Education Services Directorate had back then issued a circular, advertising vacancies for liaison officers between BirdLife and secondary school. The officers would give talks to schoolchildren and encourage bird-watching.

However, the FKNK in a press release accused BirdLife of “gradually brain-washing children through the supply of misinterpreted and misrepresented material facts, depriving them of a fair and unbiased platform about what the environment and conservation should be about”.

The hunting federation subsequently came to an agreement with the Ministry of Education, whereby it would supply it with a ‘Teacher’s Pack’, explaining the “conservation efforts of hunters and trappers in the national environment”.

In his decision, Depasquale noted that while the booklet provided a great deal of interesting and relevant information about the environment and its protection, the only mention it had made of hunting was in the context of “massacres” and illegal hunting. He argued that it did not contemplate the possibility of legal hunting and hence failed to reach a balance.

“BirdLIfe’s true identity and intentions have finally been revealed, since they could not stomach the sentence handed down by the court,” Farrugia said.