The continuous complaints of Venetian fish farmers they pushed the regional councilor Gianpiero Possamai (Lega Nord) to present an amendment to the assembly which provides selective killing of cormorants. As reported by the Morning in Padua, the birds are accused of having plundered an impressive number of fish, especially the trout, a significant economic damage for the sector.
Containment should be managed by Provincial Police, by volunteer hunting agents, by security guards and also by the owners of farms and agricultural estates. The phenomenon of the looting of fish mainly concerns the Po Delta, the Piave basin and that of the Livenza. The cormorants to which this amendment refers are those already protected and that have increased in number exponentially: aquaculture and fish farming have been heavily affected, as have natural habitats.
However, the council confrontation was not calm. The reaction of ecologists and animal welfare associations has been heated, as could easily be expected, and there are those who have defined the cormorant culling as a "shame": there was also talk of a region "Hostage of a lobby interested only in shooting at everything that moves".