Naïve figures

Should we take the feature Maltese Hunters Decimated Bird Species - UK report (April 1) as an April's Fool joke? We have been regaled with the figures quoted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - "two to three million birds are shot or trapped here each year" - for a couple of decades.

I agree that a number of protected exotic birds are shot and stuffed by collectors, but if they are shot in such numbers would an illegally shot bird fetch some Lm300 to Lm500 if they were that common; would a legally trapped hawfinch fetch Lm80 if such birds were caught in their thousands?

"The number of species breeding in Malta declined from 32 in 1916 to about 16 today...". Surprise, surprise, an old farmer from Mellieha once showed me a spot where a stone curlew laid a clutch of eggs at l-Ahrax, at ta' Xmajjar, to be exact, right in the middle of the camping site now being set up.

"In 2003, an amnesty was granted by the government for illegally shot, stuffed birds, and nearly 270,000 birds were registered...".

How naïve can one get? Has it not entered the minds of those compiling the report that hunters pretended to have in their collections many more species than they actually had so as to include any more species they might obtain in the future?

"Malta has the shortest close season in Europe..." And so it has. In Malta all game birds are migratory species and a close season exists because it is the civilised thing to have. But because birds have no fixed migration dates, it is the birds themselves that call the migration dates and not those who, in their wisdom, draft the regulations.

That said, I hold no brief for those so-called sportsmen who shoot or trap protected species but it is unfair to tar all sportsmen with the same brush.