The Regional Council of Sicily has approved the long-awaited hunting calendar for the 2023/2024 hunting season. After a series of legal disputes last year, which had created uncertainty about the pre-opening, but which had also confirmed the legitimacy of some choices of the Region, the Giunta decided to re-propose a similar calendar, enriched by scientific reasons to support the decisions criticized by the TAR.
The new hunting calendar it still provides for the pre-opening of wood pigeon and turtle dove, and for the rabbit it awaits the completion of the monitoring before deciding. The season will open on the third Sunday of September and will close on 31 January, covering species such as woodcock, thrushes and waterfowl. The Natura 2000 areas will remain excluded from hunting, as happened in previous years.
The pre-opening will allow Sicilian hunters to hunt wood pigeon, turtle dove and presumably wild rabbit. The hunting days for turtle doves will be on 2, 3 and 6 September, only from ambush, with a limit of 3300 animals that can be taken seasonally. For the wood pigeon, the hunting days will be 2, 3, 6, 9 and 10 September, always from a temporary stand. Rabbit hunting will be regulated with a specific provision after the census of the species.
In the general opening of the hunting season, set for 17 September, various species will be huntable, including the wild turtle dove until 30 September (unless the maximum withdrawal limit is reached during the pre-opening), the wood pigeon until 15 January, and quail until October 31st. Other species will be huntable until January 31, such as jays, magpies, woodcocks and many others.
Wild boar hunting will be limited in the period between 17 September and 30 October, permitted only from ambush and without the use of dogs. From November 1st to January 31st, it will be possible to hunt wild boar both in collective and free form, but the latter only from a temporary stand (without dogs) on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
The areas of the Natura 2000 sites will remain off-limits for hunting, with the exception of the areas explicitly permitted by the Wildlife and Hunting Plan. There Sicily region will issue a specific provision to regulate hunting in these sites, where permitted.
The calendar also provides for a bag system, limiting the number of game killed per hunting day. For example, for the dove the limit is 5 animals per day and 15 seasonal animals, while for the woodcock the limit is 3 animals a day, reduced to 1 animal in January, with a maximum of 20 animals that can be killed seasonally and a maximum of 6 in January.
Finally, training and training of dogs will be allowed from 21 to 30 August, from 5 to 18.
With the new approved hunting calendar, Sicily tries to balance the needs of hunters with the protection of animal species and natural areas, based on in-depth scientific studies. It now remains to be seen how this decision will be received by the hunting community and environmentalists, in an ever delicate balance between tradition and conservation.