Hunting licence exams ‘a first’

FOR the first time ever 500 Cypriot hunters will this week take exams to qualify for a hunting licence, the Game Services said yesterday.

Under new regulations hunters must now take lessons and pass an exam to qualify for a licence to ensure compliance with EU norms with regard to hunting.

Michalis Antoniou, an official at the Games Service told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that applicants were required to take three lessons spread over two weeks after which they take an exam comprising 40 multiple choice questions to test their knowledge of different types of birds and other related topics.

The exam will take place tomorrow.

“We now have a manual for hunting education,” said Antoniou. “The book also has first aid, details on the hunting law, environment regulations and types of birds.”

He said there were ten different types of birds which hunters had to learn about before they received a one-year licence.

There are some 50,000 licensed hunters already in Cyprus but Antoniou said existing licence holders would not be required to take the exam. “In future they may have to,” he said, but the aim now was to educate a new breed of hunter. The majority of applicants this year were aged 17-20 he said. Applicants must also secure a valid gun licence to be able to hunt.

New regulations now in force also stipulate that hunters who violate the terms of their licences can have them revoked after a second offence such as poaching, when a person can be banned from hunting for up to ten years.

“Anyone who loses his licence now will have to take the exams to have it reinstated, whenever that might be”, said Antoniou.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.