MaltaToday Survey | Opposition to hunting runs at 42% as neutral voters remain kingmakers

Opposition to hunting runs at 42.4% with Nationalist Party voters more likely to be against than Labour Party voters, a MaltaToday survey shows.

The findings show that 24.4% are in favour of hunting, while a substantial part of the population (28.9%) is neutral on the matter or unsure (3.5%).

The survey was conducted at the beginning of March and asked whether respondents were in favour or against hunting.

When broken down by political allegiance, the survey shows that 29.4% of Labour voters in the 2017 general election are in favour of hunting. Likewise, 20.5% of Nationalist voters are pro-hunting.

However, opposition runs higher among PN voters with almost half of those who supported the party in 2017 (49.9%) against hunting. Opposition to hunting runs at 33.6% among Labour voters.

The results are a reflection of the PN’s often ambiguous stand on hunting as it tries to balance support for the hunting community with its stronger voices opposed to the pastime.

The findings also reflect a regional divide on the issue with the strongest support for hunting found in the Western region and Gozo, both rural areas and home to large hunting communities.

In the Western region, 34.5% of people agree with hunting, while 38.1% are against. In Gozo, 32.4% are in favour of hunting, while 40.4% are opposed.

The lowest support for hunting is found in the Southern Harbour region with 19.5% in favour. However, this urban and industrialised region is also home to the largest cohort of uninterested people with 34.7%.

The strongest opposition to hunting is found in the Northern region with 47.7% against the pastime, followed by the urban Northern Harbour region with 45%.

Support for hunting runs strongest among those aged between 36 and 50 with 28.7%, while the strongest cohorts against hunting are among those aged 51-65 (45.7%) and 16-35 (45.5%).

In the 16-35 age group, support for hunting runs at 26%, while 25% don’t care about the issue and 3.6% are unsure.

Hunters got their way by a whisker in a 2015 referendum on spring hunting. At the time, 50.4% voted in favour of having a spring hunting season and 49.6% voted against. The turnout was 74.8%.

Although the referendum focussed on the particular issue of spring hunting, the result flipped in favour of hunters because they managed to sway neutral voters. MaltaToday’s latest survey findings show that although the pro-hunting community is a minority, even if a strong one, neutral voters remain kingmakers on the issue.

Methodology

The survey was carried out between Monday 1 March 2021 and Friday 5 March 2021. 649 respondents opted to complete the survey. Stratified random sampling based on region, age and gender was used to replicate the Maltese demographic. The estimated margin of error is 4.9% for a confidence interval of 95% for the overall results. Demographic and sub-group breakdowns have significantly larger margins of error.