After a long discussion e many exploits by both some politicians and some hunting associations, tomorrow the regional council is preparing to vote the hunting calendar for the 2021-2022 season, despite the efforts made both by the officials, by the technicians of the Umbria Region and by the Councilor Roberto Morroni, to whom our thanks and appreciation for the work done, who have worked hard to find a solution and allow one day turtle dove hunting in pre-opening, for the season that is about to begin.
It has already been known for some time, so much so that, with a note dated 22 March 2021, the Ministry communicated to the Region that on the basis of the lack of agreement on the management plan, the species cannot be included in the respective hunting calendars. Therefore, the exploitation of the issue is a clear sign that he has lost sight of it the target and the culprit continues to be sought for the failure of the hunting policies of some associations, which have also sinned in disseminating correct information to hunters. To clarify, on 20 May the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces has communicated the favorable opinion of the agreement on the management plan of turtle dove provided that it is possible to collect the species in pre-opening for a maximum of 3 days (with a daily game bag of 5 animals and a seasonal bag of 15 animals), this indication has not been incorporated in any official act of the Ministry, therefore to today there are no tools to insert the turtledove in pre-opening.
The European confrontation on wild turtledove began with the development of an Adaptive Harvest Management Mechanism (AHMM), as a tool to ensure that hunting is sustainable and in full compliance with the dictates of the Directive. The success of these Plans depends on the commitment of the Member States, which are ultimately responsible for hunting decisions in accordance with their own national laws. Given the phenology of the species, the model is developed for the two main migration routes (Western Flyway which includes the Iberian Peninsula, France and two Italian regions, Piedmont and Liguria and the Eastern Flyway, with all of Central Europe, the Balkans and the remaining Italian regions).
For both flyway an in-depth debate took place on the best management choices, including the proposal for a temporary moratorium on hunting and the option supported by Italy to allow strictly controlled sampling, provided that they are implemented measures for environmental improvement, an effective supervision of the collection and a constant monitoring of the game bags, without these requisites no collection mechanism is conceivable The workshops that took place led to the conclusion that for the two Flyways, environmental improvements will be evaluated in terms of territorial relevance, consistency of the game bags and the supervisory and control measures; in particular for the eastern Flyway, more important for Italy, the orientation was proposed that envisages a 50% reduction in hunting bags compared to what is reported by the Member States.
For this purpose, the hunting will be subordinated to the prior realization of the three aforementioned conditions. Also for the western Flyway, in the case of hunting activities, the same pre-conditions are foreseen. Therefore, in order to be able to continue with the collection of the turtle dove, albeit in a limited form, we should still respond to the request of the European Community, referring to today's situation, responding to the three basic conditions to be able to continue hunting, environmental improvements, vigilance and monitoring of the game boxes. A correct hunting policy must know how to build the foundations for the future, working in agreement with the institutions for the application of the management plan and for the application of correct environmental management.
Once again we do not miss the opportunity to achieve a correct management of the species object of hunting, we begin to work immediately with the Region and ATC which return to being the vital center of management and not the object of exploitation, to put in the field all those necessary actions including environmental improvements, which are the most important game to play for the hunting world and which will certainly also be useful for other species, we immediately resume the dialogue with the Region so that hunting surveillance is restored and we correctly inform hunters on the use of the hunting card and the importance it has.
Only if we know how to seize the opportunities that are given to us and not just suffer limitations, we can defend tomorrow's hunt. For years, European policies have been oriented towards the conservation of Habitats and ecosystems and fauna by making available to member states important economic resources, only through a synergistic action that sees all stakeholders united could we give hunting a future. We are there! (Source: Arch Hunting).