Selection hunting in Italy: studies, research and methods of exercising this hunting practice. Today there is an increasing need to consider and recognize selection hunting as a tool to keep the ecosystem in balance.
The purpose of selection hunting is to reduce damage to agricultural crops, woods and, in some cases, also to cars traveling near green areas which, from time to time, are involved in collisions with wildlife.
This hunting method is allowed and regulated by law, which is based on compliance with a pre-ordered killing plan, divided by sex and age classes, drawn up on the basis of censuses and estimates through a strict scientific criterion, in line with the modern principles of eco-compatibility and eco-sustainability. Selection hunting is also authorized by Regions, Provinces and, for protected natural areas, by Park Authorities, according to their respective areas of competence. The ultimate goal of selectively programmed hunting is therefore the safeguarding of the density and the predetermined structure of a wild population, in a specific territory, through the exclusive collection of the annual increase, that is the so-called “income” of the wild population. All this happens without affecting the development potential, that is the wild "capital": by dividing the slaughter into the different sex and age classes, a scientific criterion is reached with which to carry out the selection hunt. It is important to underline that this hunting method is not aimed, as is common in the common imagination, only at sick, debilitated or old leaders. On the contrary, it is a form of hunting that aims to maintain the balance of populations of wild animals, with the aim of avoiding significant imbalances between the various components of phytocenosis (the fundamental unit of vegetation) and zoocoenosis (the complex of organisms animals that make up a biocoenosis in an ecosystem).
The practical action of the selection hunt is entrusted to a hunter qualified for this exercise, after the latter has obtained the qualification of selecontroller by attending a training course and passing the final exam. After the latter, regular voluntary and unpaid censuses of the wild population in a given territory are carried out. "Counted" the animals to be killed, the selecontroller is entrusted with a personal killing plan of a certain number of artiodactyl ungulates, divided by sex and age class, which must be carried out in a given area of relevance, single or in co-management with other selecontrollers , within the time frame established by the regional calendar. Selection hunting in Italy plays a role of fundamental importance, since in our territory there is a considerable scarcity of predators placed at the top of the food chain, such as bears, wolves, jackals, lynxes and eagles, with the consequence that there are actual problems surplus of cervids, bovids and suidae.
The possible and excessive demographic expansion of these even-toed ungulates implies, in the territories concerned, an increase in the damage caused to agricultural production, cultivated land, pastures, young woodlands and, lastly, to cars in transit on interurban roads. In particular, the wild boar is a wild that causes greater damage to the phytocoenosis, which consist in the decrease of the vegetal biomass and in the wide plowing of the soil which, caused by the rooting of this wild in search of roots, tubers and small mammals, can slow down in some cases natural renewal. The damage caused by bovids such as chamois, ibex, mouflons and wild goats, and by cervids such as deer, fallow deer and roe deer, on the contrary, mainly consist in the grazing of the seedlings, the vegetative apexes of the branches and the shrub layer, with probable danger for renewal natural. Taking into consideration the peculiarities of each green area, the plant species most at risk due to grazing are, in general, the silver fir, the spruce, the stone pine, the mountain pine, the hook pine, the Scots pine. , larch, rowan, ash, sycamore maple and, to a lesser extent, beech. Some studies have shown that male deer also cause further problems due to damage due to the barking and rubbing of the antlers on the trunks and lower branches, during the period of the change of velvet and the demarcation of their territory.
Roe deer, wild boar, fallow deer and deer are, in order, the wild ungulates most affected in the increasing number of car accidents that occur on Italian roads and that cause significant damage to cars and, in particular cases, even serious injuries to people on board. . Certainly, the intensity and quantity of damage caused by rooting, grazing, barking and collisions with motor vehicles are directly proportional to the numerical quantities of the various populations of ungulates living in a given geographical area: the greater the population of these. animals existing in a given area, the lower the bearing capacity of that area and, consequently, the greater the damage found in that area. Consequently, the need arises to control the populations of the most numerous species, in order to reduce damage. Surely it is still wild animals that pay for the wrong actions of man and the anthropization of the territory. In fact, man has exterminated natural predators by destroying large wooded areas, manipulating rural areas or carrying out casual reintroductions, breaking the food chain of many ecosystems and consequently compromising the delicate balances that reign in the relationships between the various components of the biocoenosis. Selection hunting is the most immediate tool, but not the only one, to control the increase in the population of wild animals and keep the ecosystem in balance. The census of wild animals, therefore the number of animals to be killed, in a specific geographical area is one of the most delicate aspects of the selection hunt, since it is often the same controllers themselves who perform them. What the Italian territory would need is a scrupulous and scientific approach to the question of maintaining the balance of the ecosystem, through rigorous studies on the density of the wild animal population and the support of the institutions.
This would bring significant improvements both to the ecosystem and to the selection hunt itself, which would receive greater national recognition as an ecological tool.