Letters | Sunday, 06 December 2009

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Spring hunting is not a criminal offence

In his reply to my letter ‘Deceitful hunters and my Hoopoe’ Mr Maurice Mizzi informs me about his having followed “all types of birds since the age of 21”, a fact nobody ever doubted. In fact, apart from the Hoopoe, which he now claims as his, Mr Mizzi’s birds hail from several foreign lands. Surely this should make him an expert on birds, but as his letters clearly depict, not the feathered kind.
He argues that he is enjoying the birds which he has not been able to see and hear throughout his entire life “thanks to the ban on spring hunting” and claims he saw this bird a few weeks ago. Is he not aware that the shooting season has been open for nearly three months? So it seems his not seeing birds has no relation to hunting, but more likely to a total lack of a good sense of observation or to the fact that hunters are not as “wicked” as he claims.
After having boasted about the numerous photos he took of “his” Hoopoe and admitting to having reproduced one taken from the internet, since his were “not so perfect”, he now reproduces a photo he claims to have taken that could grace any ornithological library. Mr Mizzi, who are you trying to fool? And please, do tell us where you got this photo from this time...
Mr Mizzi also tries his hand at portraying hunters as being deceitful, claiming “the hunting lobby has fooled the European Union” into believing the September season is not as “important” as spring hunting. The matter of spring hunting primarily concerns the “satisfactory” hunting of turtle doves. If he had to read what Mr Joe Sultana, founder of the Malta Ornithological society (now Birdlife Malta), says in his book “A new guide to the Birds of Malta” on page 94 (Sultana and Gauci 1982) he would discover that these ornithologists record the Turtle Dove in Malta as “very common spring migrant from late March to early June” and “In Autumn it passes in much smaller numbers”. Are Mr Sultana’s words also part of the hunters’ deceit? They too seem to agree spring is far more “important”.
So if Mr Mizzi would like to try his hand at arithmetic when trying to discredit hunters, he should first learn a few facts about ornithology before assuming his silly nonsense. Also, if he considers the “bringing back” of spring hunting as being “criminal” he might wish to state what, according to him, is not ‘criminal” in hunting. For his information, spring hunting will be back. Its return has been endorsed by a European Court judgement that openly discredited all the nonsense he was conditioned to believe and foolishly preaches.
Having failed miserably to convince anyone about his ornithological prowess, I sincerely suggest Mr Mizzi starts writing about the birds he might be knowledgeable about and forget the feathered kind. Should he wish to reproduce photos of “his” other birds for fear of his not being so perfect, the internet is a most useful source. Who knows, some people might actually believe him.

Mark Mifsud Bonnici
San Pawl Tat-Targa

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