'We hope you're happy now,' FKNK tells EU

Hunters are no longer cooperating with authorities and reporting poaching illegalities because they have no trust in the European Union, the hunters’ federation has said. “Not a single hunter or trapper in Malta and Gozo has a modicum of respect left for European institutions,” the FKNK said, arguing that as a federation it could no longer count on its members to report poachers, as there was no faith in EU justice. Three protected white storks were shot down on Friday, with the perpetrator reportedly collecting two of the dead birds before escaping. The illegal act was condemned by parliamentary secretary Clint Camilleri, himself a hunter, as well as by the St Hubert’s Hunters group, which slammed the “inexcusable” act and urged its members to help bring perpetrators to justice. No such outright condemnation was however forthcoming from the FKNK, which in its first reaction to the incident said that while it condemned illegal hunting and trapping, it likewise condemned the European Commission for doing all it could to wipe out hunting and trapping for good, despite “knowing precisely that local traditions are of no threat to any species.”

In a veiled dig at BirdLife Malta, the...