Wild boars destroy from Carpineto Romano to Segni most of the truffle grounds of the Lepini Mountains which produce the summer truffle, the hook and the precious winter black
wild boar Wild boars and climate threaten the truffles of the Lepini and Subiaco Mountains, which remains a coveted wealth to defend. In these weeks the sublacense and lepine truffle hunters, from Carpineto Romano to Segni, from Maenza to Cori, are in full harvest. The price of the scorzone (this is the name of the summer truffle) varies between one hundred and one hundred and forty euros per kilo and the underground one is one of the most coveted mushrooms for typical mountain dishes. Production varies from area to area and until now suffered from the lack of rain, which affect the consistency of the mushroom (drier in this period).
On the Lepini Mountains there is no agreement on how the season is going and perhaps it depends on the individual truffle grounds. "It is a good year even if it is suffering from the few rains”Says the collector Segnino Riccardo Corsi. According to Nello Roccaccio, historic organizer of the Carpineto Romano black truffle festival, there is a general decline. Corsi and Roccaccio, on the other hand, agree on what is threatening and damaging the truffle fields: wild boars. “Wild boar is a serious problem - says Corsi - because the more time passes, the more we are losing truffles. Where before a kilo of truffles was made, now it makes half of it and you don't know what to do because no one takes care of the problem ”.
“The truffle fields are almost at a standstill for climatic reasons - says Roccaccio - and the few that could produce have suffered a lot of damage from wild boars. At the very least, between wild boar and climate, - he adds - I believe that this year there will be 60-70% less production, just look at the sales on the internet: whoever sells truffles sells a maximum of one kilo because there is no quantity ". Even in Subiaco the white truffle put at risk by wild boars: the collectors prepare a petition. Apart from the climate, the problems associated with wild boars affect all production: the animals they do not disdain scorzone or uncinato, they go in search of precious black and white. In winter the latter is typical between the Aniene Valley and the Giovenzano Valley, in the Subiaco area, where it is also sold to 2-3 thousand euros per kilo.
The wild boar is also raiding there, among the woods and monasteries of the Valle Santa, so dear to San Benedetto. This is told by Marcello Proietti, a collector from Sambuci who has a workshop of artisanal products. "White, hooked and scorzone is the same: the boars are destroying everything. For thirty years I have been going for truffles - says Proietti - and in recent years those mushrooms have entered the diet of wild boars. Until five or six years ago it was fine because the animals carried the spores, but now it seems to me that they no longer eat anything except truffles, snails, and the bulbs of orchids that were born in our woods. The white truffles of Subiaco - he adds - they are also appreciated in Alba but, if this continues, in another two or three years even those will be over ”.
In Subiaco the collectors are collecting signatures to ask for a public intervention that regulates the wild boars also because, from the Lepini Mountains to the Aniene Valley, if the truffle sets, whether it is scorzone, black, hooked or white, it also sets yet another source of income of a mountainous territory in the process of depopulation. And the dream of enhancing places through gastronomy also sets. Unless a more reasonable policy is made on the wild boar. From the Lepini Mountains the appeal to the Region: "Listen to the cry of pain of the territory"While in the Aniene Valley a petition to contain the wild boar is being considered, from Carpineto Romano, in the heart of the Lepini Mountains, the mayor asks the Region to" listen to the cry of pain of the territory ".
"In recent years - says Stefano Cacciotti - the phenomenon of ungulates has exploded throughout Italy causing serious damage to crops and numerous accidents and also Carpineto Romano, after having solved the problem of wild cattle within the inhabited center at its own expense and having greatly reduced their presence on extra-urban roads, in recent months it has had to face this emergency with an increased number of animals exponentially especially close to the inhabited center. I hope that the Lazio Region hears the cry of pain of the territories - continues Cacciotti -, or of citizens and farmers, to urgently activate what is necessary to the reduction and containment of wild boars and to speed up the process of approval of the regional law still under discussion in the Commissions "(The New Tribune).