A technical table for the implementation of the coypu control plan. On Monday 14th June the management Agro-environment Planning and management of fish and wildlife-hunting of Veneto region meets with agricultural organizations in order to share all those useful actions and measures aimed at containing nutria, also in Polesine. «We have been raising this question in the appropriate forums for some time - they commented to Cia Rovigo -. We thank the regional administration for having opened a discussion on such an important and delicate issue: both for agricultural entrepreneurs, who often risk seeing their crops compromised, and for land reclamation consortia; the latter are required to invest thousands of euros a year to rearrange the embankments of canals and ditches, dotted with holes formed by the nutria ». According to the latest estimates, there would be over 200 thousand specimens that roam freely in Polesine.
«Impressive numbers - underlines the director of Cia Rovigo, Paolo Franceschetti - which give the figure of the age-old criticality to which the institutions must give a concrete answer. In parallel with the eradication interventions, rapid warning systems must be put in place in the case of new colonizations. The otters usually build burrows near the embankments, which, inevitably, yield in case of transit of tractors and agricultural vehicles in general. The loss of crops is therefore added to a danger for the farmer himself and for the entire hydrogeological balance ».
They also have a very high reproductive potential: the female can be fertilized throughout the year and even a few hours after giving birth. There are usually 5 or 6 babies given birth. "We can no longer wait - concludes Franceschetti - the survival of the sector in the Polesine area is at stake". And the plague of otters does not concern only the Polesine, but also many areas of the Veneto (Il Gazzettino).