Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/963162
maltatoday SUNDAY 8 APRIL 2018 24 'P igeon-culling', they called it. Or to quote an actual news report: "Pigeons were controversially shot down in the historic city of Vittoriosa on Thursday afternoon in an attempt by the council to control the rising pigeon population." 'Pigeon culling', huh? Funny, because what we all saw happening in the video looked like something quite different to me. I didn't see any 'wildlife conservationists' performing the painful duty of keeping an unwieldy bird population to within reasonable limits, for the good of the environment as a whole. But I did see some five trigger-happy men with air rif les, having the time of their lives simply blasting a bunch of birds out of the sky for no particular reason. And just to drive home the point that these were nothing more than nostalgic, old-school hunters reliving the 'good times' they have since lost... they even dressed up for the occasion. Camouf lage and all... (you know, in order to blend in better with the urban Birgu backdrop...) Ah, what a timely reminder of the good old days... when men were men because they dressed like Rambo and carried guns; and when birds existed for no other purpose than to be shot at for the personal gratification of men (and it even says so in the Bible – Genesis 1:28) Above all, it was a time when all this namby-pamby, 'environmentally-aware' business of introducing 'hunting laws' and 'gun-control restrictions' was still far, far off in the future. And by my count, precious few of those laws were not openly f louted in Birgu last Thursday: under the close supervision of the police, and with the full blessing of the local council. Not all of them had to do with hunting, either. Last I looked, it was illegal to carry firearms in built-up areas... still less to discharge those firearms all over a small and densely populated city like that. Oh, I have no doubt that there will be some form of legalistic justification for this wholesale disregard for public safety... some proviso which allows local councils to simply defecate on the country's laws under certain circumstances (not unlike a pigeon defecating all over your car, when you unwisely park it right under its anus.) But even if the breach can legally be defended... those laws are there for a reason, you know. It is not just pigeons that get can hit by air-rif le pellets (Note: I don't want to jump the gun – ahem – and guess what type of ammo they were using... but if it can kill a pigeon, it can certainly damage a human being). Watch the video again: some of those unfortunate birds were roosting on top of balconies when those five men took aim and fired. We even saw one getting shot off its perch on the balustrades of a private house. What if the marksman missed? What if pellets blinded someone as he or she was hanging up the washing on his or her own rooftop? What if a window pane got smashed, and shards landed on a child in the room behind? And even if no one got hurt: what about damage to private property? What guarantee was there (or could there have been) that not a single pellet, out of all those fired, would get embedded in someone's wooden balcony or window shutter? OK, it didn't happen... at least, not that we saw, or has been reported thus far... but still: how can such grotesquely irresponsible behaviour be not only tolerated, but actively encouraged by the local and national authorities alike? Then there's the small but bothersome detail about animal cruelty. I was reluctant to go in this direction... because let's face it, it only opens up all sorts of paradoxes and contradictions that we'd all much rather avoid. People who eat meat can hardly complain about the pain and suffering of a bird hit in the wing by a smouldering piece of metal, can they? What about the cow that got its face smashed in by a hammer, so they could enjoy their Steak Tartare? What about the colony of rats that bled internally to death (ever seen the effects of strychnine in action?) because you called your local pest control agency to take care of the infestation... like anyone else would, myself included? What about that poor little cockroach you crushed to death under the sole of your shoe the other day, for no other reason that because it was there, in your field of vision...? No, indeed. We are all too guilty of animal cruelty – most often without thinking, or even being aware of it – to suddenly get the heebie-jeebies about a bunch of birds bleeding to death on the cobbled alley ways of Birgu. But still. What an edif ying sight, huh? Something to bring your children out, so they can see and remember it for long enough to convey the horror to their own children in turn. A bunch of dead or dying birds, being scooped up off the road and dumped in a bin... leaving dark blotches of blood to show where they had fallen. Oh, but wait... some of those birds in the bin are still alive. We can see them still writhing, and ineffectually f lapping the occasional broken wing here and there. So tell you what: I'll just give them a good whack with this shovel here, so that... um... they'll suffer a little more unnecessary pain before dying... Sorry, but there's a limit to gratuitous cruelty for its own sake. Those people who squawk about mistreated kittens and abandoned puppy-dogs, while devouring some poor piglet's ribcage doused in BBQ sauce... Blood on the streets in the town of Old Birgu Raphael Vassallo Opinion Last I looked, it was illegal to carry firearms in built- up areas... still less to discharge those firearms all over a small and densely populated city like that