A fundamental moment of analysis
Castelbuono hosted an important and crowded technical-operational meeting with the selectors/assistants involved in the operations to contain wild ungulates foreseen by the specific plans specifically prepared by the body Madonie Park. In addition to the extraordinary commissioner of the body, Salvatore Caltagirone, also present were Sandro Scelfo, an official of the body, the scientific manager of the plans, Egidio Mallia, Ciro Pedrotti, commander of the Palermo Forestry Corps, Giovanni Misseri and Giuseppe Di Noto of the Rural Development Department of the Region, led by the general manager Fulvio Bellomo. The mayor of Castelbuono, Mayor Mario Cicero, also did not fail to greet the meeting. The summit was an important moment of analysis on the state of implementation and progress of the plans, specifically providing an initial assessment of the activities carried out. The analysis of the data still in progress has already made it possible to detect that from the start of the activities to today, approximately two thousand heads of fallow deer have been removed as part of numerous interventions planned by the offices of the Park authority. An important announcement is that the recently approved swine containment plan will also soon begin.
The aim of management
The procedures within the implementation of the interventions have been analyzed and addressed to evaluate possible corrective measures, to improve the results and reach the objectives of reducing the excess species. The final objective is to implement a wildlife and land management that is increasingly respectful of the delicate balances of the protected natural area, founded not only on the strict respect of all the reference regulations but also on solid technical-scientific criteria. The need to provide a new program of training courses to further improve the knowledge of the selectors was also addressed, which allows to ensure an ever better and updated knowledge with respect to the health developments that concern wildlife and public health and also to expand the audience of the selectors themselves.
Faunistic heritage
Among the hypotheses, also the launch of an evaluation system that allows to analyze the efficiency of the individual operators involved in the interventions and provide for the inclusion of reward or penalty criteria, essential to increasingly improve the implementation of the operations and in a way that is increasingly consistent with the needs of protecting biodiversity and managing the park's wildlife heritage. "The meeting is part of a constant improvement of the operations envisaged by the plans for the containment of wild ungulates. These are dozens of specially trained units that have been operating for months now, figures who operate in the spirit of volunteering", says Caltagirone. The park, precisely with a view to further incentivizing the actions, is implementing all possible strategies to provide economic support, albeit symbolic, to be recognized to those select controllers who will distinguish themselves in the most rigorous application of the operating procedures envisaged in the plans as well as in full compliance with all sector regulations.