How to scare away tourists

We have just returned from a week's trip to Malta, an island which we have enjoyed for the last 30 years.

As we walked along the road from the Jerma Palace Hotel towards St Thomas's we turned down a track by The Beach Club and there, to our absolute horror, not 50 yards from a main road and easily visible, was a man who was blatantly trapping birds.

He had set up along the cliff many small cages containing birds to entice other birds down by the cages where some fine nets could be triggered.

How barbaric is this? And what is the point of it? It is pure cruelty.

Malta is going to get a lot of publicity soon when all the heads of state arrive for the conference in November and hopefully this will attract tourists to a lovely island.

But people will not come if they know what goes on in Malta and the cruelty that goes on here.