Quoting a Legal Notice from 1993, which permits the hunting of wild rabbits from the 1st of June till the end of the year, and a Legal Notice from 2006 which allows hunting with weapons other than shotguns, the Hunters Federation, FKNK, have said that they may start shooting wild rabbits with airguns.
The federation said they have already issued a code of practice and conduct for this “new practice” in Malta.
In their statement, the Federation said that the police were already receiving applications for this “sport”, even though its secretary, Lino Farrugia, admitted that wild rabbits were not exactly abundant in the Maltese Islands.
The Federation added that although it recognised that hunting wild rabbits with airguns was a popular practice in several countries, such as the UK, it wished to make it clear that this new practice will not be a substitute for “traditional, socio-cultural hunting”.
The Federation said that any new applicants who wished to hunt wild rabbits, as well as those who held a licence for using an airgun at a target shooting range, had to first join the Federation.