Arcicaccia: "Wilma the huntress with a past as an anti-hunt".

Caccia & Ambiente: The story of a woman who from preconceived hostility now directs a club of the Arci Caccia.

“And to think that I had always been against it hunting… ". Wilma Vettorel, from Treviso, since 2010 huntress and since this year president of the Arci Caccia club in Mareno, which has 104 hunters, all men, confesses her "original sin", which has accompanied her for over forty years. Symbolically and with conviction, close to 8 March, in the congress assembly, unanimously of those present, they wanted her at the head of the Association. "A difficult choice - Wilma tells us - because it was about taking the place of Ferruccio Carnielli, the unforgettable director of the association that has positively marked, for more decades, with the battles of the Arci Caccia which saw him in the front row, the history of hunting as I like it: responsible, linked to the management and conservation of fauna ".

“Di Carnielli - Wilma continues to tell at the table with Pier Luigi Pittarello, Paolo Sponchiado and Giuliano Ezzelini Storti - I remember the first meeting after I joined the Arci Caccia club in Mareno and signed up for the ATC n.4. I immediately sensed his passion and his obstinacy in promoting popular and sustainable hunting. It hit me. He was a great president and a great man even with defects, starting with his particular character, which all human beings have. I went hunting with Ferruccio for two years. I learned from him to hunt hares and pheasants with dogs, to respect the rules and distances, to know the areas, to consider the work of farmers, to understand more and more what hunting is, who are hunters and why it is necessary. fight poachers and the culture of robbery and destruction they bring with them ”.

"And then .." .- Wilma stops for a moment. With his gaze on the horizon he seems to relive those moments and his face lights up. "I participated in the capture of hares in the repopulation areas and I discovered the joy and bitterness of men according to the results achieved because those captures are the clear testimony of the good management work done and how useful hunters are in protecting biodiversity . In those circumstances I understand what hunting is: tradition, respect for the environment, social commitment, healthy fun, true and genuine friendship but also healthy rivalry and competition. During the capture operations you look at the eyes and the fatigue of those people, who sacrifice time and money to their family, and you feel the devotion to nature on the part of the hunters. Much more than certain people who like to call themselves environmentalists but who then unfortunately demonstrate the opposite from the little everyday things ”. Master Rigoni Stern was right when he wrote that "hunting is freedom, sun, space, storms" and God knows how important it would be for everyone to understand it to restore the dignity that belongs to this ancestral passion that has accompanied the life of entire communities " . “In 2013, after Ferruccio's death - continues Wilma - I temporarily take his place as vice president. I do not feel this responsibility, I am afraid of not being up to it and then it happens that I had become a grandmother. I have often thought back to the facts of life: in the same hospital where my daughter was giving us immense joy, there was on the upper floor Ferruccio who was leaving us but who continued to worry about hunting, the Arci Caccia and the bureaucratic deadlines of the hunters. It will remain in my heart - Wilma says this looking at Paolo Sponchiado, the current president of the Arci Caccia di Treviso, then secretary - when Ferruccio Carnielli, whom I went to visit to give him the happy news, asked me to call Paolo for some hunting issues ". "Paolo doesn't answer ... I said" ... "Go back and call him until you and or he finds ..." Ferruccio answered in strict dialect.

"It is remembering that moment that, in March of this year, flattered by a unanimous vote of the members, I became president of the club in which I entered for the first time pushed by Dario Buscema, head of the Fauna Academy of the Province of Pordenone". “Thanks to Dario, I changed my mind about hunting and became a hunter,” Wilma Vettorel tells us. “A really long journey since there was a certain hostility in the family as well. Since I was a child, I heard my dad talking about all the colors against the hunters who crossed his territories and from the garden and from the trees also vegetables and fruits disappeared. Who knows if the blame was always and in any case to be attributed to the hunters ". “Then one day - Wilma says - I meet by chance a young man who talks about hunting and holds courses for the hunting qualification near our house. My son who is passionate about weapons begins to attend the lessons of Dario Buscema who at a certain point invites me to follow the course that explored the themes of ecology, the environment, biology, sustainable hunting and hunting ethics ". “So my story as a huntress begins by chance. Since then a new world has opened up to me that I did not know before except by hearsay and that I openly despised. In December 2010 I got the hunting license, the basic one because the permit for the Alps area I got after and even later, in Friuli, the qualification for selection hunting as well as in the traditional form ". "Thanks to this extraordinary teacher and to what I later saw that I become aware of a fundamental thing: hunting is not evil, on the contrary, if managed in the right and responsible way it contributes to the maintenance and conservation of wild species and habitats and can be decisive in the control of invasive and opportunistic species. The farmer is right when he reports the damage due to the inexperience (and not only) of the hunters but he turns, at least in our territories, to the hunter friend when foxes, wild boars, otters and other species become a serious problem for his crops ". "I say this firmly and I would like it to be clear to everyone - continues Wilma - one of the great problems besides poaching is the incorrect hunter, often arrogant and poorly informed, who through behavior and actions of mismanagement, even in contrast with the law , provides public opinion with a hateful image of the hunting world. Those hunters are to be educated or stopped. They are bad for hunting ”.

At this point Wilma lets herself go into hunting memories, the beautiful ones and the less exciting ones.
“My hunt begins in 2011. Also through Dario I meet a professional hunter, Roberto. A lover of hunting in the valley who manages and coordinates several hunting and fishing valleys between the lagoon of Venice and Bibione. With him I know the valleys and the techniques of barrel hunting. Really magical but I feel, and I know I give him a displeasure, which is not my heart, it does not excite me. In the meantime, I practice clay pigeon shooting to prepare myself, but… I really don't know how to do with ducks. Roberto also has a passion for hunting ungulates and involves me in this new experience. For a whole season I follow him quietly and attentively in the roof terrace, looking in the woods at the time of the roar of the deer and in the great hunts for wild boars. I am fascinated, even if the alarm is at 3 in the morning and it is freezing cold. Now yes, I like everything. After obtaining the Hungarian license and a rifle I try wild boar hunting. I don't know what the reaction will be in the face of the first killing. It happens after some time, it's a boar around 50 kilos, I hit it in the right place, it stays still. The Hungarian gamekeeper says "good shot, kaputt boar". I take a leap of joy and satisfaction that I couldn't even explain to myself. I embrace Jula who will then be by my side in the hunt for ungulates in the Gobosmajor reserve for the whole season ”. “Since last season I have been hunting in the Sernaglia della Battaglia Alpine Reserve I often go to the Brait di Falze 'di Piave training center, managed by Giordano, inside the reserve”. I participate as a joke, with my Greta, in the first dog competition with pointing dogs. We win. Thanks to Roberto and Renato, thanks to all the RA 26 hunters! "
It is a river in full Wilma but before saying goodbye he does not fail to remind the reporter and everyone: “The future of hunting depends on us and on the actions that the hunting world will do to emphasize the social utility of the hunter. We do not have to tell ourselves that we are clean and good but show it every day with the behaviors and choices that are made. People will understand. On the other hand, it has already happened to me! "

Fox red