Game down as well as shotguns. Instead, the ungulates and the damage they leave behind increase, creating large ones problems with agriculture. One month after the reopening of the hunt for Diana's followers, the season as usual promises to be between lights and shadows. Also this year there is one fewer shotguns, which for some associations is close to 20 percent. “As far as we are concerned, from a thousand to 800 - explains Sergio Fratelli, provincial president of Free Hunt Siena -. There are many reasons: the young are further away than in the past, the elderly have laid down their weapons and so the numbers of hunters are dwindling. Too bad because with their presence also an element of attention of the territory is lost.
Then there are the high costs, around 530 euros a year just for the license ". But Fratelli reports that not only doubles are decreasing but also a certain type of game: “Pheasants and hares are disappearing. Siena was a flagship until a few years ago for this type of game which is unfortunately increasingly rare today. While there is an invasion of wild boars. As for the pheasant in particular, its habitat is failing. Climate change, intensive crops in agriculture, the increase in predators have gradually meant that the pheasant of the Crete Senesi is slowly disappearing. The hare finds solutions to get supplies but the pheasant, finding nothing in the fields, is in great difficulty".
It seems that the numerous farm animals that are released into nature every year cannot make up for the absence of what until recently was a typical element of local game: "Farmed pheasants must be followed and not all structures are equipped for the animal to get comfortable. They were born in captivity, it would take several stages, attention and also a lot of time to devote. Then the quality is different: the pheasant of the Crete Senesi, the typical one, is no longer there. And when you go hunting, you immediately understand that the situation has changed. This year the ATC is carrying out an experiment, to hatch the eggs with a hen so that, even if born in captivity, they can be started better ”.
In fact, the risk is that these inputs turn out to be small in the end: “It has been clearly explained to us that far more than half of these pheasants left in the wild die. Mostly because it ends up in the mouth of the foxes, the others because they are unable to survive after captivity. The hare has greater resistance and therefore manages to adapt but unfortunately an era is really over for pheasants and sooner or later we will have to ask ourselves the problem because they are no longer there "(Corriere di Siena).