By Martin Hellicar
GUN and hunting licence regulations are to be tightened in an effort to reduce the number of shooting accidents and halt the slaughter of protected birds.
The proposed new legislation enjoys the support of both hunters and environmentalists, although the latter stress that it would not be enough in itself.
Champion of the new bill is firebrand Diko deputy Marios Matsakis, who believes the current state of play concerning gun and hunting licences is a recipe for disaster.
“As things stand, you apply for a gun licence once and it remains valid for life,” Matsakis told The Sunday Mail. “Each person is allowed five guns in his own name and could have another five in his wife’s name. It is easy to have a whole arsenal in one house.”
“Hunting licences have to be renewed annually but the procedure is a mere formality – you just go down to the District office and pay your money,” he said.
Matsakis said the result was that there is precious little control over who owns and who wields a gun.
“We have many hunting accidents. I don’t have exact figures, but each year we have fatalities and hundreds of injuries.”
In the latest hunting accident to hit the headlines, a 13-year-old boy was seriously injured when his father’s shotgun misfired while they were hunting in the Larnaca area on January 6.
If nothing is done, things can only get worse, Matsakis predicted. “Soon we will see hunting guns being used in criminal activities,” he said.
The proposed new legislation would force gun owners to renew their gun licences every year. Applicants would also have to pass a test before being granted a licence. This test would cover all aspects of gun safety and would also involve the applicant undergoing a medical test.
“People would also have to prove they were keeping the guns safely in their homes. Their homes would be inspected to ensure that all guns were under lock and key in a metal cabinet,” Matsakis said. “Anyone with a criminal record would be banned from having a gun licence.”
He described as “cursory” current checks on the criminal record of applicants.
The new law would also try to put a stop to hunters shooting protected bird species – an illegal practice which environmentalists say is widespread.
“Hunters would have to pass a test on species identification before getting their licence renewed,” Matsakis said.
The Hunters Association was completely behind the proposed legislation, its spokesman, Andreas Kyprianou, told The Sunday Mail.
Kyprianou said the vast majority of hunters did not deserve the bad reputation they had, but he admitted there was room for improvement both in terms of safety standards and environmental awareness.
Local hunting laws were already stricter than in many European countries and those ‘bad apple’ hunters who had tarnished the reputation of the blood sport by shooting protected species were now kicking their bad habits, Kyprianou maintained.
Cyprus was one of the few countries in Europe where hunters were restricted to nothing more powerful than a double-barrelled shotgun, he said. The age limit for a gun licence was also high, he said. “To get a licence for a gun in Cyprus you have to be 21. This is much stricter than in Europe, where 18 is the limit.” Kyprianou said this was ironic, considering that 18-year-old army conscripts were allowed to use “machine-guns and tanks”.
“But it is not an issue of age but rather of who gets to be a hunter: they should know the regulations, they should be true sportsmen and have an environmental conscience,” he said.
He admitted that a “small number” of hunters were prone to shoot both legitimate game and protected species indiscriminately, but added that things were fast changing for the better.
“Enlightenment campaigns we have carried out over the past five years have changed things unbelievably,” he said.
“Things have got much better, but we do still need some steps, which is why we support the new legislation,” he said.
In addition to forcing new hunters to pass a test before getting a licence, the new law would make it obligatory for seasoned hunters to attend safety and conservation seminars every year, Kyprianou said.
The Green party also backed the proposed clamp-down but stressed it was but a step in the right direction.
“The problem is we don’t have any statistics about what is being shot. It’s very hard to know what hunters are actually up to,” said party member Melina Menelaou.
“Wildlife needs more protection,” she said, adding that the government Game Service seemed concerned only with making sure there was enough game for hunters to shoot.
Laws were all very well, but implementation was the key, the environmentalist added.
“Many songbirds are still killed by illegal use of mist nets and lime sticks, and you can still buy pickled ambelopoulia caught in this manner in restaurants.”
Last week, two flamingoes – a protected species – were found shot at their winter feeding grounds at the Larnaca salt lake.
