'Dog training' quail shooting goes ahead despite outcry

A competition for gun dogs organised by hunting lobby FKNK went ahead on Saturday, despite strong objections from animal rights activists.   The event, which had made provision for the shooting of 180 quails, sparked outrage from animal rights protesters, with Real Animal Rights Foundation (RAR), Animal Liberation Malta and Vuċi għall-Annimali branding it “a clear breach of the Animal Welfare Act”.   The competition took place between 9.30am and 3.30pm on private land in l-Aħrax tal-Mellieħa belonging to families of hunters, according to the Federation for Hunting and Conservation.   While images and videos on social media focused on hunters shooting the birds as part of the event, the FKNK stressed that the point of the event was a competition for gun dogs, with each dog scored on their abilities to retrieve the downed birds.   A spokesperson for an animal rights NGO however, told Times of Malta that this could have been achieved by using birds that were already dead, and did not require the use of live birds.   They added that the area used for the event, and one designated a Natura 2000 site, was currently in a state of ‘regeneration’, and that the activities of the hunters...