An increasing phenomenon
There are thousands transfers in the countryside they each eat up to 20 grams of olives per day in the olive groves of Bari and Brindisi and on the Gargano in the epicenter between San Giovanni Rotondo and Manfredonia, where the phenomenon of bird clouds has become daily and pressing. The complaint comes from Coldiretti Puglia which signals the worsening of the phenomenon of the flocks of starlings, also due to climate change with the high temperatures that make the birds that devour the olives proliferate. Particularly affected by starlings the olive sector in the provinces of Bari and Brindisi in the coastal road between Polignano a Mare, Castellana Grotte, Monopoli, Alberobello, Locorotondo, Fasano, Cisternino, Ostuni, Carovigno, San Vito dei Normanni, Mesagne and Brindisi and on the Gargano and the damage is between 30 and over 60% - explains Coldiretti Puglia - for the olive trees.
Olive harvest
In addition to direct damage, indirect damage should not be underestimated. Starlings destroy the pitches used for olive harvesting - insists Coldiretti Puglia - and olive growers are forced to fight a disaster without having the tools, almost condemned to reschedule their agricultural activity to avoid the destruction of production. Among other things, it is not only olive growing that is affected, given that the passage of flocks of starlings leaves such quantities of excrement on the vegetables as to make the product unpresentable on the market. The starlings find nighttime refreshment in the protected areas, to resume the diurnal food raids for months now, given that the anomalous heat of recent years has made the protected species convert from migratory to sedentary.
Other relevant problems
The most serious and well-known case of the damage caused by wild boars to agriculture must not make us forget - he argues Coldiretti Puglia - that there are other problematic species, such as the domesticated forms of wild species and the feral forms of domesticated species. In this context, there are numerous damages caused by feral dogs to farms and those due, instead, to the massive spread of the feral pigeon which damages not only crops, but also agricultural products stored in silos, such as seeds and cereals. Another relevant problem is, then, that of the control of some alien species - concludes Coldiretti Puglia - they have spread invasively, causing serious damage to aquaculture and agriculture, for example the cormorant and the starling.