Full legitimacy
In recent days the Council of State rejected in precautionary proceedings the request of the animal rights associations for the suspension of the effects of the ruling with which, last October, the TAR Lombardia had affirmed the full legitimacy of the 2024/25 Lombardy hunting calendar. Therefore, the hunting season continues to take place regularly until its conclusion according to the methods and timing indicated by the calendar itself. The ruling is very significant for having recognized the Regions' possibility of departing from the Key Concepts (KC) as they have a "statistical value of a prudential probabilistic type, susceptible to proof to the contrary on the basis of elements suitable for highlighting different reproductive timing".
Statistical basis
The Council of State then highlighted how the Italian methodology, adopted by ISPRA, for determining migration, is not the one on a statistical basis, for which a species is considered "in migration" when the majority or the average of the population "starts to migrate", as the countries bordering ours do, but that on a "precautionary precautionary basis" which considers the species in migration when "the earliest movements on the territory" are identified for it. Indeed, it should be noted that the Italian KCs did not take as a reference the start date of pre-nuptial migration the moment in which migratory movements involve a significant fraction of the populations present in the country; the data from other States instead start from the distinction between erratic winter movements, non-migratory and the true start of pre-nuptial migration, this also reported by the European Commission.
European guidelines
The Council of State also stated that the motivation with which the Lombardy Region departed from the opinion of ISPRA is supported by an investigation that is "appropriate and complete in relation to the different assessments of the various institutional bodies and the European guidelines". This is an important decision that, together with the ruling of the TAR in October that underlined how "hunting activity is practically coeval with human history" become a cornerstone for the drafting of future hunting calendars and their value. We would also like to recall how the TAR recognized the value of hunting and its activities, which "although they have now lost their original character as the prevalent, if not exclusive, source of sustenance for communities, equally represent a part of the Italian social and cultural tradition, without considering that hunting today pursues not only a recreational purpose but also a measure of conservation of the animal heritage.
State of conservation
Consider the selective culling of species considered excessively invasive or culling to limit the spread of serious diseases such as African swine fever”. The effort made by the Region in collecting reliable and updated scientific data on migration dynamics and the state of conservation of the various species was rewarded, as well as the support that some hunting associations (the ANUU with the lawyer Pietro Balletti) offered to regional lawyers, in order to obtain these results. This is truly an excellent result that must spur the Region to approve the calendar for the next season as soon as possible (the procedures have already been underway since mid-November, Editor's note), in order to demonstrate once again the true value of hunting and to allow defense before the judges, reducing to a minimum the possibility of last-minute suspensions, close to the opening. It is also hoped that Italian politics will finally want to enhance hunting activity as it does in the rest of Europe (source: ANUUMigratoristi).
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