A tripled number
The number of wild boars in Puglia in the last year it has tripled, with consequent damage to crops, threats to humans and dangers for the export of pig products. An emergency within an emergency, dictated by the African swine fever, which was widely discussed during an interesting conference organized in Castellaneta by the Due Mari area of Cia-Agricoltori Italiani di Puglia, in the Grotte di Sileno farm. An event, coordinated by the deputy vice president of Cia Puglia Giannicola D'Amico and the director of the Due Mari area Vito Rubino, capable of rallying numerous farmers and entrepreneurs, intent on viewing explanatory films and listening to the words of industry experts, of the Atc commissioners of Puglia and of regional political exponents. The regional councilor for agriculture Donato Pentassuglia was clear: "It is urgent to ask the government to amend law 157 of 1992. We need a national regulatory framework that takes into account the current dimensions of the wild boar phenomenon, with a number of specimens capable of multiplying exponentially every year. A solution, according to the words of Dr. Domenico Campanile, manager of the Sustainable management and protection of forest and natural resources section of the Puglia Region, could be the so-called "selection", in addition of course to primary hunting.
Disease prevention
"Wild boars are not fought, they are managed to prevent disease" were the words of Onofrio Mongelli, manager of the 'Promotion, health and well-being' section of the Puglia Region. "The Region -added Mongelli- has a plan to prevent the plague and we have recently begun to implement every measure available to implement it". Important and highly appreciated contributions in the room also came from the world of universities and research. Nicola Decaro and Pasquale De Palo, respectively director and deputy director of the Department of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Bari, spoke of difficult management of the problem but also of a pilot project which, through research and development activities of the Alta Murgia Park, he would be ready to give answers also in the province of Taranto.
Monitoring management
Lorenzo Gaudiano, professor at the Department of Biosciences, Biotechnologies and the Environment at the University of Bari, on the other hand, didn't hide himself: “It would be too onerous to census the number of wild boars in such a heterogeneous territory as the Apulian one. We need to identify management lines for monitoring - he said - and we are working hard on this, so that this enormous criticality can be mitigated ”. The Cia president of the Due Mari Pietro De Padova area, also speaking in his capacity as president of the agritourisms of Cia Puglia, said he was willing to encourage the development and marketing of wild boar by bringing it to the tables of agritourisms, using appropriate and safe recipes, lengthening cooking times for meat. Gennaro Sicolo, regional president of Cia Puglia instead cut it short: “We acknowledge the Region for having launched a monitoring and management plan for the wild boar. We hope that the bureaucracy and, to say the least, anachronistic positions of the world of environmentalism will not further delay its implementation because, otherwise, once again the farmers will lose out”. The conclusions of the conference were finally entrusted to the regional councilor Pentassuglia: “We can't underestimate anything - he declared - also because we are supported by top-level scientific studies and this conference, well organized by the CIA, proved it. None of us wants to become a solver of activities that are actually very complex but at the same time it is our duty, each one according to his or her own skills, to find decisive solutions". (Source CIA)