CNCN: A maximum of 30 days per year would eventually be added to the current calendar, 20 in February and 10 in August, for a total of 12 days since hunting is done 3 times a week. Hunting all year round does not exist because it is precisely the European legislation that we want to adapt to prevent it.
The CNCN, National Hunting and Nature Committee, in the context of the debate on the amendment to the community law on hunting, informs on the following:
- On the hunting period, or rather on the fear of a "no limits hunting":
The current hunting period (1 September - 31 January) is potentially extended to a maximum of 2 decades in February and a decade in August, for a total extension of the period of only 30 days, which translates into 12 days of additional hunts per year as they hunt 3 times a week.
The ban on hunting in the other months - March, April, May, June and July -, therefore the ban on "hunting all year", is established and guaranteed by the European Union through the three provisions on the subject: the Directive Birds, the key concepts of the Ornis Committee of the European Commission and the interpretative guide of the Directive.
These three documents together establish in fact that hunting calendars must be based on the criterion of respecting the periods of nesting, migration and reproduction of the individual and different species of animals. That's why you could never hunt all year round.
And throughout Europe it is already like this: the calendar by species and by decades has already been adopted for years in all European countries, Italy is the only country that still has a purely chronological calendar that does not take into account the different characteristics of the individual species. Examples: in England and Ireland the wood pigeon is considered a pest and is not subject to a limit, while in France it is hunted throughout March, in Austria the turtle dove is hunted from 16 August to 31 January.
With article 43, for example, in Italy for some species such as mallard, the hunting period would not increase, but would decrease with closure in mid-January.
- On the fear of the loss of protection of the species, a double guarantee: the levels of the populations and the exclusion of mammals
The regions must determine the new hunting calendar for each species on the basis of mandatory periodic studies on animal populations, aimed at identifying any overcrowding. It is on the basis of these data that the regions must make the new calendar, which must receive the prior opinion of the ISPRA, from which the regions will be difficult to detach.
Any extension of the hunting period is valid only for birds and does not concern mammals in any case, with the exception of wild boars, which have a density such as to seriously damage agriculture.
- AS RECEIVED PUBLISHED -