In an open letter to education minister Clifton Grima, the FKNK has claimed that asking children whether killing flamingos is bad is a “continuation of BirdLife’s brainwashing campaign”.

To make this claim, Malta’s hunting lobby referenced a year three school children’s book, called Teleskopju 3, a book which is in line with the latest Maltese syllabus.

In section 12 of the book, called ‘The Flamingo and the Nature Reserve’, children are asked whether it “is a good thing that hunters shoot at this beautiful bird”, referring to the protected flamingo.

The FKNK then came out saying that the question asked is “malicious and deceiving” for children. 

“Through this malicious and deceiving question, in our humble opinion, children are being influenced to look at their parents who might be hunters themselves in a negative light.”

“This is nothing but the continuation of BirdLife Malta’s brainwashing campaign targeted towards children, against their own parents that might be hunters or trappers. Such influence is indirectly obvious in this book,” they said.

The FKNK then referenced the case when BirdLife Malta opened a libel case against the FKNK for a statement released titled ‘BirdLife Malta Infiltrate Education Department’, through the ‘Dinja Waħda’ campaign.

This comes as a man was just sentenced to a year in prison in Malta for shooting and killing four flamingos, which is a protected bird.

What do you make of FKNK’s open letter?