Hunters were told yesterday that, if the government refused to open the spring hunting season after next week’s election, the federation would not encourage them to respect the law.
“Whereas I usually encourage you not to break the law, this time, if the spring hunting season will not be opened by whoever is in government after these elections, I will not say anything,” FKNK general secretary Lino Farrugia suggestively declared yesterday at a public meeting for hunters in Victoria, Gozo. “And Dr Gonzi: don’t come crying to me afterwards, if hunters do not respect the law…”
Addressing a crowd of some 500 hunters and trappers – many of whom attended the meeting with their hunting dogs – a fiery Farrugia raged against Environment Minister George Pullicino, Birdlife Malta and the editor of MaltaToday, Saviour Balzan.
Farrugia told hunters to reflect seriously before casting their vote next Saturday, as the present government had reneged on its promises to hunters.
“The Government has done its very best to accommodate Birdlife, whom we call ‘BirdLies’, as well as other environmental organisations and the European Union. They have increased restrictions on us hunters to accommodate them and the EU. Pullicino gave them even land owned by the Maltese population to take care of,” Farrugia thundered, with the audience booing loudly at the names BirdLife and Environment Minister George Pullicino.
Lino Farrugia constantly implied that the European Union’s purpose was to use Malta as a scapegoat: “The EU is trying to use us to pass on a message to other EU member countries. The EU is trying to destroy our hobby. It is trying to tell the other EU countries that it wants to stop hunting and trapping in Malta and Gozo. We are being used by the EU because we are the smallest nation and new in the EU.”
Farrugia repeatedly accused PN of failing to keep its promises. But George Pullicino bore the brunt of the onslaught, with Farrugia implying that he had gone out of his way to fork out funds for Environmental NGOs at the expense of the hunters.
MaltaToday editor Saviour Balzan also came in Farrugia’s line of fire. “He is a traitor of the people,” Farrugia bellowed, accusing Balzan of having been given money by the Government to negotiate something else, instead of what had been agreed with the hunters. “Balzan should be investigated for having been given public funds,” the FKNK secretary said.
Also in the FKNK’s black book is BirdLife veteran and former president Joe Sultana, himself a Gozitan, who was described as the “hunters’ and trappers’ traitor” for having renounced his hunting hobby to found The Malta Ornithological Society way back in the 1960s.
“These people (referring to BirdLife enthusiasts) act they way they do not because they love birds, but because they hate hunters and trappers” Farrugia concluded passionately.
On his part, FKNF president Joe Buttigieg reminded hunters of the past 20 years of PN in Government “I have only one thing to tell you. Reflect and think what we have passed through in these past years. “The EU has been knocking at our doors since the 1990’s when a certain Stanley Zammit introduced this concept,” said Buttiegieg.
Buttigieg insisted that partisanship should be left aside, and that hunters should only think about their hobby when it comes to voting.
“PN promised us lots of things since 1998, but since then we have been going backwards and not forward. We have been losing out all the way. We lost hunting at sea, hunting in the afternoon and hunting in the valleys. For all these reasons, we are asking you to reflect.”
Buttigieg closed the meeting by thanking the hunters’ wives, girlfriends and dogs in the same breath.
“Special thanks go to hunters’ wives and girlfriends, and also the dogs who are awaiting the spring season with the same zeal as the hunters themselves,” he said, to a mixture of applause and barking from the crowd.

See Saviour Balzan opinion