Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1535569
10 OPINION Jens Ulrik Høgh is a hunter and freelance journalist maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 21 MAY 2025 "IN Malta, hunters shoot all birds that fly over the island. They kill millions of birds every year, and hunting is neither regulated nor sustainable in any way." This is the typical image that people in northern Europe— including other hunters—have of Maltese hunters. Hunting on the island is perceived as a serious threat to Europe's bio- diversity. I am a hunter and freelance journalist in Scandinavia, and this year, I went to Malta to witness the first days of spring hunting for turtle doves and quails. The experience was far from the usual Western per- ceptions of mass killings of mi- gratory birds. Between 10 and 20 years ago, anti-hunting organisations widely publicised the horror stories about hunting in Malta throughout Western Europe. We haven't heard anything since then, so most people who followed the issue at the time still believe that Malta's hunt- ers are a significant problem for nature conservation in Eu- rope. I spent three half-days in the company of Maltese hunters. The hunters were well pre- pared, with trained dogs, de- coys, hides, and well-honed shooting skills. Two shots were fired (at the same bird), and a single turtle dove was killed. Now, you might think that the Maltese hunters were dis- appointed with the meager re- sults, to the point where they might even consider staying home rather than spending half a day not killing a single turtle dove. Nothing could be further from the truth! I experienced a burning pas- sion for hunting and all its as- pects, which is in no way less than the passion that, for ex- ample, a Swedish hunter feels for elk hunting in the forests. It was actually striking how similar hunters in Malta are to their brethren in the rest of Europe. The hunting methods and species are very different, but I experienced the same fer- vent commitment to the hunt itself; the preparations for the hunt; the work with the hunt- ing dogs; the joy of mastering the hunting equipment; the camaraderie; and the intense desire to experience nature as a hunter. Hunting in Malta (like everywhere else) is strong- ly influenced by the weather, wind direction, and countless other factors that determine the birds' migration patterns. Behind every hunter lies gen- erations of accumulated local practical hunting experience. But is hunting a threat to spe- cies? Hunting has many opponents. It is claimed, for example, that hunting threatens the popu- lations of several European species, including turtle doves and quails, which are hunted during their spring migration across Malta. To put things into perspec- tive, the Western European tur- tle dove population is around five million birds. The EU has allocated a quota of just 1,500 birds to Maltese hunters—ap- proximately 0.3 per mille of the population. As the population is also growing rapidly, there are hardly any serious wildlife biologists who would serious- ly claim that the traditional Maltese spring hunt for turtle doves is a problem. In addition, the Maltese hunters' associa- tion, FKNK, has initiated both a breeding project and a GPS tracking project. The breeding programme contributes around 750 turtle doves to the popula- tion each year, and the GPS tag- ging project, in which a handful of wild turtle doves caught in nets are tagged with ultra-light GPS transmitters, documents the birds' movements around Europe and Africa in much greater detail than is possible with traditional ringing. These projects naturally stem directly from hunters' passion for hunting turtle doves and make an enormous positive net contribution to conserving the species. However, there is po- tential to exploit hunters' pas- sion for nature and promote hunting as a valuable tool for nature conservation to a much greater extent. Regardless of one's opinion on hunting, it is a fact that Malta's approximately 10,000 hunters have a wealth of knowledge about the species that pass through the island. No one else has a better grasp of even the smallest fluctuations in popu- lations and behaviour, no one has greater historical insight, and no one is better at captur- ing and tagging wild birds with traditional rings or high-tech GPS transmitters. If only every- one with an interest in practical nature conservation could fo- cus on the common goal of im- proving conditions for wildlife, hunters could contribute even greater amounts of data, prac- tical experience, and, not least, a well-documented willingness to take action. A fight for the sake of fighting Unfortunately, many other green organisations are stuck in the past, when hunters were an important enemy to be used in efforts to raise money. These Hunting in Malta contributes to nature conservation Jens Ulrik Høgh The FKNK conservation project aims to reintroduce the barn own back into the wild in Malta and Gozo (Photo: FKNK)