The vote in committee
In the VIII Commission of the Lombardy Regional Council an amendment was approved for the modification of Law 26/93. If the proposal is also approved by the Regional Council, article 26 will be rewritten which governs the possession and use of live calls.
The main news
If the proposal becomes law, these will be the main changes:
The identification of a "regional" ring is envisaged: only lures that will be equipped with the new ring distributed by the Region in a manner to be defined can be legitimately held and used and it is envisaged that the current FOI and AMOV rings will remain valid only until distribution of the new regional ring. It should be noted that it may be a ring or a band, made of metal or even plastic or other suitable material.
There is a 10% tolerance on the measurements and the measurements will be defined with a provision by the Giunta, which will also have to define the technical characteristics of the ring.
The new rings will be delivered upon request by the interested party.
Calls with a mutated phenotype belonging to huntable species (together with the "domesticated pigeon" and the "domesticated mallard") may be held and used without a ring.
It will be possible to replace the ring for reasons of animal welfare or for deterioration.
Some perplexities
Given that the matter requires a regulatory intervention that clarifies and gives certainty to hunters, and that this proposal certainly lays the foundations for a real reorganization by introducing important possibilities, there are some perplexities regarding certain passages: it seems excessive (and problematic for many) that it becomes illegitimate to keep birds bred with a regular ring of Ornithological Associations, but without a regional ring, making the affixing (alternative or concurrent?) of the new seal obligatory; with reference to specimens with a mutated phenotype, the absence of a ring makes it impossible for the hunter to demonstrate the legitimate origin of the call, since, although rare, mutated specimens also exist in nature: perhaps the norm will be understood in the sense that for these calls, the breeder's ring and the Region's ring is not needed; it seems to have to be assumed that the tolerances will concern the regional ring and not the others (which, moreover, are not sufficient to legitimize even the detention of the recall). Perhaps these are trifles, which it would be easy to remedy with small changes to the text, unless we are dealing with precise choices. In any case, we will then have to wait for the implementing provision of the Giunta: in fact, beyond the approval, what really matters will then be the effective application, above all with regard to the new "legitimation" of the decoys already in the possession of the hunters and the relative procedures (especially with reference to the rings already affixed), and it will be essential that the system guarantees the hunter that no one can dispute the legitimate origin of the lure (source: FIDC).