The Federation for Hunting & Conservation – Malta (FKNK) has produced a report, published in booklet form, entitled: ‘A FKNK Report on (Spring) Hunting and Tourism on the Maltese Islands.’

Lino Farrugia CEO of FKNK said that, “this report does not attempt to justify Maltese hunting, scientifically or technically. Several publications, also by the FKNK, are available in that area.”

“This literature only states facts regarding anti-hunting persons and entities, who shield themselves under the umbrella of ‘bird-protectionists’ in order to satisfy their ultimate aim to abolish Maltese hunting and trapping customs and ‘collect’ funds in the process, even at the sake of harming incoming tourism to Malta through boycotts,” he added.

Farrugia pointed out that, “incoming tourism figures for 2013, forecast by hoteliers, predict another positive record year and the Malta International Airport (MIA) has announced the best ever April in passenger movement and tourist arrivals this April 2013 reached 133,771, an increase of 8.3 per cent over April 2012.”

“Despite these positive facts, the hype that anti- hunting entities and individuals managed to create seems to have aroused the Malta Hotels & Restaurants Association (MHRA)’s concern that hunting may negatively affect the economic income of their members. The MHRA also proposed a national conference to tackle this issue,” Farrugia stated.

“The MHRA conference initiative, which did not materialise, is the purpose why this report has been published. Therefore, the FKNK thanks the MHRA for this ‘push’ since such an informative and detailed report has been long overdue,” Farrugia said.

Farrugia went on to say that “besides dealing with the Maltese traditional socio-cultural recreational passion of spring hunting, the report also tackles some journalism, both local and foreign, anti-hunting bias; hunting tourism; volunteer tourists and related neo-colonialism issues; “illegal hunting.” ; the hunting way of life; and tourism boycotts.”

He added that, “the report also explains that eating game is not only healthy but also considered a delicacy, since no matter what amount of money one possesses, one can never afford to buy a wild-game meal at any of Malta’s several restaurants and hotels.”

Farrugia said that “simply because traditional wild-game dishes, which only hunters can “afford,” cannot be made available on commercial restaurant menus because the source is not available to the restaurant operators and hoteliers.”

“Furthermore,” Farrugia continued, “the report also gives recipes of Malta’s chief game-birds, turtle dove and quail, which are the only two species for which limited and controlled hunting is permitted in spring.”

The report is being distributed to the media, MPs, Ministries, EU Institutions, tourism entities and all other interested parties and further copies can only be purchased from the FKNK offices in Msida.

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