Roe deer 21.301, deer 10.153, common hare 13.993, blackbirds 165.505, foxes 1.941: these are just some of the numbers referring to the killing of wild animals that took place in Trentino during the period between the 2014 and the 2018. Five years during which Trentino rifles hit an impressive number of animals. Overall, among birds and mammals, they were culled in 2018 84.787 specimens. In the previous two years it had also gone worse: 149.663 in 2017 and 130.378 in 2016. For many environmental associations and for some politicians this represents an open wound. In these days the provincial councilor of the Greens, Lucia Coppola, criticized the choice of the Province (with Northern League traction) to grant the authorization for the killing of a thousand crows and about 500 jays, two species considered harmful to agriculture.
"Coppola rightly complains about these new killings - affirms Filippo Degasperi of Onda Civica - but when the autonomist center-left was in the government, things were no better ”. The provincial councilor of Onda Civica, through an application for access to the documents, had managed to obtain the data on culls ranging from 2014 to 2018. In addition to the species already mentioned, there are also: 14.311 chamois, 1.389 wild boars, 1.376 mouflons, 23.057 specimens of woodcock, 87.166 of Cesena, 1.275 black grouse, 659 of gray and black crows (since it refers to five years, while in 2021 it reached 1.000), 15.988 pheasants, 19.121 jays (in 2021 we are talking about 500), and 216.238 thrushes (between bottaccio and sassello). “These are the numbers of a looting - Degasperi points the finger - perpetrated against the Trentino fauna, perhaps with alternating trends, but this is what we are talking about.
In fact, what should be everyone's heritage is privatized and this has been happening for years, left or right makes no difference. The tragedy is that most of the citizens, not to mention the tourists to whom an idyllic image of 'green' Trentino is sold, are unaware of all this ". Faced with these numbers, the statements reported in the columns of "L'Adige" by Giuliano Andreatta make a little smile. rector of the municipal hunters section of Pergine, who complains about how wolves are "affecting the local fauna - saying he is worried because - in our reserve also in April some specimens of roe deer were found, with a lot of damage to other local species such as hares and wild rabbits". Now, leaving out the fact that wolves are carnivores and as such they mainly eat game it is not clear why if a hunter kills a roe deer this is not a damage while if a wolf does it.
These statements are paired with the hunter who, during a meeting dedicated to wolves organized in Ala, photo in hand, said he was impressed at the sight of a carcass torn apart by a wolf, when, since the world began, shoot, eviscerate and quarter a ungulate to recover meat and trophies it doesn't have to be an operation for the faint of heart. This is to say that in the face of the numbers of slaughter, perhaps it is the wolves that can best regulate the balance of the ecosystem, it being understood that this does not necessarily exclude the presence and activity of hunters (except when specious arguments are raised). "The politics of the palace - concludes Degasperi - passes off any animal as harmful, while listening to certain statements it almost seems that the people of Trentino live under siege by animals when perhaps the opposite is true".
On the topic raised by the rector of the hunters section of Pergine one could even mention the councilor for agriculture, hunting and fishing Giulia Zanotelli who, replying to her majority colleague Leonardi (Forza Italia) who asked what were the actions taken to protect the native fauna "so severely affected by bad weather and predation by large carnivores ”, he explained: none. "The rigors of winter - underlined Zanotelli - even when exceptional, do not constitute a danger factor for animal populations, but rather a factor of regulation of the same. The same goes for natural predators. For this reason it was not necessary to foresee, on a provincial scale, particular interventions to support the fauna "(The Dolomites).