Submitted by ANIMAL RIGHTS MALTA’S BLOG

The Christmas edition of The Times reports:

“The hunters’ federation wrote to Education Minister Louis Galea today to protest over what it described as ‘further brainwashing of schoolchildren’.
The federation’s secretary, Lino Farrugia, referred to a questionnaire distributed to Siggiewi primary school children before the holidays, and also recalled that on October 30 the federation had also written to the minister about ‘another case of brainwashing’ at Zurrieq St Francis primary school.
This, Mr Farrugia said, was not education but an orchestrated campaign against the traditional hobby of hunting and trapping.
He urged the minister to investigate who was responsible for the questionnaire and who had allowed such material to be distributed in the school.
The questions in the questionnaire were: Do you agree with bird hunting as a hobby? Do you think the police are doing a good job to control illegal hunting in Malta? Do you think hunting is a precious Maltese tradition? Do you think hunting should be abolished completely in Malta? Do you think hunters damage Malta’s natural environment? Do you think hunters improve Malta’s natural environment? Is or was anyone in your family a hunter? Can you name three Maltese environment organisations?
Mr Farrugia said the environment organisation Nature Trust had been behind the first case at Zurrieq. Although the federation did not know who was behind the case at Siggiewi, he was sure it was Nature Trust’s ‘usual company’. He hoped the minister would not ignore this complaint in the same way as he appeared to have ignored the first”.
I believe that a detailed reply or rebuttal to the above is superfluous, since the claims by the hunters’ federation, like the federation itself, are nothing but a bad joke. Suffice it for me to say that the duty of the Ministry for Education is to give a proper education to children, to give them the relevant facts, and to encourage and help young children to become thinking individuals and not unthinking puppets who follow a “tradition” simply because it is “traditional” to do so.
The questions in the questionnaire do just that, and the schools in question should be given all the praise due. We definitely need more schools like these. Sorry Mr Farrugia, but hunting is a dying “tradition” and repulsion towards your immoral act of murdering non-human animals for pleasure is growing day by day. Get over it, or better still, get over hunting and stop murdering animals.
As for the questions themselves, just for a bit of harmless fun, let me answer them myself:
1. Do you agree with bird hunting as a hobby?
Definitely not. Hunting is murder.
2. Do you think the police are doing a good job to control illegal hunting in Malta?
They would if they were given sufficient resources, including more police officers.
3. Do you think hunting is a precious Maltese tradition?
Of course not. The only people who “need” hunting are the hunters themselves, just to satisfy their uncontrollable urge to destroy the weak.
4. Do you think hunting should be abolished completely in Malta?
Like all other immoral practices, all hunting should be completely abolished.
5. Do you think hunters damage Malta’s natural environment?
Some do to a large extent, some do to a small extent. But, as the spent cartridges in our countryside can witness, they all do to some degree.
6. Do you think hunters improve Malta’s natural environment?
Some might, but not because they are hunters. They can still improve the natural environment and not hunt.
7. Is or was anyone in your family a hunter?
Not in my immediate family, no.
8. Can you name three Maltese environment organisations?
Nature Trust, BirdLife Malta, Friends of the Earth.
There…I have finished answering the questionnaire. Oh my God! Now I’m brainwashed too!

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