The hunting of birds in Malta is very wrong but it's easy to point the finger. Don't get me wrong, I'm dead against the hunting of birds but two million dead birds in Malta is pretty small potatoes when compared to the carnage reaped by our fluffy feline friends.

" It may be their instincts at work, but according to the Mammal Society, Britain's 8m domesticated cats (and 1m feral cats) kill up to 300m wild birds and mammals every year. That is about 35 animals every year or one every 10 days, per cat"
http://money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/story/0,,1599936,00.html

Add this to the death toll reaped by our own 'sportsmen' and women. We're hardly squeaky clean on the subject.

"More than 22 million birds are shot legally in Britain every year, as part of a Eu-ropean toll of well over 100m, a new survey claims".........

"Even so, the the figures -some of which were challenged yesterday - may well cause eyebrows to be raised, as may the fact that Britain, according to the report, is second in Europe in terms of the number of birds killed annually, behind only France, where 25 million are shot. Italy is third, with 17m".
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20060815/ai_n16646553