Fauna: Tuscany, 80 thousand euros from the Region against predators and wolf hybrids

Fauna: Tuscany, 80 thousand euros from the Region against wolf predators and hybrids

di Benjo

9 January 2015

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Reading time: 4 minutes of reading

Fauna: Tuscany, 80 thousand euros the cost of a project financed by the Region for the management and containment of predators and wolf hybrids, safeguarding livestock activities.

The goal is to contain predations and build a system of coexistence between the presence of the wolf and livestock activities, conserving the wolf and, at the same time, reducing the conflict with humans. The project presented by the Provinces of Grosseto, leader, Siena and Arezzo and financed by the Tuscany Region, foresees investments for 80 thousand euros. The planned actions have as their purpose the deepening of the knowledge of the qualitative and quantitative distribution in the rural environment of canids, wolves, hybrids and wandering dogs and, as regards the extent and extent of the conflict between local livestock activities and the wolf, the promotion of a series of initiatives that inform and sensitize the various components involved. The project will have a duration of 2 years and includes:
1. Promote an organic and integrated monitoring system, including genetic monitoring, of the presence of wolves and hybrids and of the predation events connected to them on the regional territory, expanding the cognitive framework in a rural environment regarding the number of wandering dogs / hybrids / wolves;
2. Promote technical assistance, information and awareness raising activities (debates, conferences, brochures, thematic exhibitions, etc.), with the support and collaboration of agricultural and environmental associations, expressly addressed to operators in the sector and in any case to all those social categories interested, aimed at reducing the problems connected to predation (also implementing those managerial solutions that have been positively tested and implemented in Italy and in Europe) and to favor the use of specific economic resources to support farmers for conflict prevention activities.

In the three Provinces the phenomenon has had, and still has, a very different impact, depending on the environmental and socio-economic characteristics of each territory, which has determined a difference in the objectives and actions undertaken to date. The new project will seek to optimize knowledge and coordinate strategies while taking into account specific local needs and situations. This type of approach will also make it possible to optimize resources with significant savings for individual entities. The three Provinces will compare the experiences already started over the years and in particular Siena and Arezzo will verify the approaches adopted by Grosseto for the estimation of abundance and for the detection of the temporal dynamics of the wolf, hybrid and dog populations produced by the Province of Grosseto with the projects Ibriwolf and Medwolf.

This approach will bring a double benefit:
- the use of comparable methodologies throughout the territory of southern Tuscany, in order to standardize the data and produce a reliable overall picture;
- an acceleration in the collection of data by the provinces concerned;
The sharing activity will concern a series of documents already adopted by the Province of Grosseto, as beneficiary and partner of the LIFE Ibriwolf and Medwolf Projects, including:
- Operational protocol for the capture and removal of dog / wolf hybrids;
- Provincial strategic plan for the reduction of canine strays;
- Guidelines for the management of wolf-dog hybrids;
- Protocol for the creation of a data collection form at livestock farms that have suffered damage from canines;
- Protocol for the activity of collecting genetic material of the predator on the body of the prey.

IBRIWOLF AND MEDWOLF
The Province of Grosseto is the only Italian province that has promoted itself as leader and partner of two LIFE projects (IBRIWOLF and MEDWOLF) on the theme of pure wolf conservation and the reduction of the wolf-man conflict, which they see for the first time the involvement and collaboration of trade associations in the agricultural world, environmental associations, hunting associations, institutions and research centers (both Italian and international). The IBRIWOLF project, started in 2011 and now in the final phase, has set itself the goal of countering the loss of genetic identity of the wolf in its territory, where the presence of dog-wolf hybrids has been ascertained. The project made it possible to develop strategies for the identification of hybrids (characterizing them both genetically and morphologically), to outline their presence on the territory (developing a database) and for their management (with removal interventions), as well as draw up a strategic plan for the reduction of canine strays, which due to the innovative training method used (it has been shared by Bodies and Associations) can be considered unique in Italy. The objective of the MEDWOLF project, launched in 2012 and whose conclusion will take place in 2017, is above all to reduce the conflict between the presence of the wolf and anthropogenic activities in rural areas, through the adoption of best practices aimed at reducing attacks on livestock.

The enormous work that has involved practically all the provincial soil in the last 4 years has been fundamental for the characterization of the phenomenon (distribution of wolves, hybrids and dogs), the definition of specific protocols approved by the Ministry of the Environment and the Protection of the Territory and del Mare (MATTM) and ISPRA, but at the same time highlighted the need to investigate further aspects, such as recovering the submerged data, essential for the correct characterization of the phenomenon. With this, for example, we refer to a massive underestimation of the number of damage from predation, a consequence of the lack of reporting to the ASL by the breeders, who instead complain of an important frequency and intensity of the phenomenon in the area. In particular, the IBRIWOLF project then made it possible to define well-structured and stratified sampling strategies (both geographically and temporally), standardized and approved by ISPRA and MATTM for the numerical and distributive analysis of wolf, dog and hybrid populations.