Two birdwatchers from CABS were showered with lead pellets yesterday

Mark Micallef

Two birdwatchers from the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (Cabs) were showered with lead pellets yesterday morning after a hunter shot in their direction, apparently aiming at a quail a short distance away from them.
The hunter, who stood some 100 metres away when he fired the shot, insisted, while being interrogated by the police, that he had hit them accidentally but apologised profusely.
The birdwatchers, German nationals Thomas Hellwig and Enrico Obermeier, were on a public road with their back to the hunter observing some raptors in the distance when they heard a gun shot behind them and felt the hot lead pellets searing their forearms.
They turned and saw a hunter with his gun raised, walking in their direction.
Mr Hellwig, the elder of the two, instinctively took a couple of photos and fled with his partner, while calling their coordinator.
They were only very slightly injured but were convinced they had been targeted deliberately.
After the hunter's statement and the apology, however, the NGO dropped the charges.
"I tend to believe him," David Conlin, a coordinator for Cabs explained shortly after the interrogations.
"He apologised heartily, looking me in the eyes ... hardliners don't do that," he said.
"I'm still happy we went through the procedure though, and established the facts through a police investigation."
Since Saturday the volunteers have met with all sorts of abuse, he continued, a fact which put them on the alert.
In fact, he complained that the intimidating tactics, from what Mr Conlin insisted on highlighting was a small minority, increased after comments by the Hunter's Federation (FKNK) last Monday which described the foreign birdwatchers as a group of "German extremists".
"We've all become Germans now and are being called Nazis besides everything else. It's an insult, not only to the Germans but to the entire European conservationist community."
Beyond the abuse, however, he also said some birdwatchers had been pushed around.
"That's not to say all hunters are like that. Some of them are very nice. They'll actually offer you coffee. But there's a menacing small minority, and the hunter's federation comments are encouraging them."
The FKNK reacted to yesterday's incident by insisting on the line it took on Monday, warning its members to beware of the foreigners here to "spy" on them.
It reiterated its call for them to "protect their Maltese land, where they usually exercise their right to hunt, from these foreigners". It warned the Environment Ministry and "the Maltese leaders" within the NGOs that they should assume responsibility for any incident which "these foreigners could cause with this interference in our country".