Digiscoping Special: hunting for images ..

Digiscoping: In my career as a photographer I have always felt the need, accompanied by a good dose of curiosity, to explore worlds that are foreign to me or at least fascinating.

di Stefano Laboragine

But never, until today, had it occurred to me to document a wild boar hunt. So, I am lucky enough to be invited with my camera by Andrea Tamarri: organizational mind of the Alta Val Savena beltlai team. The meeting place, before planning the excursion, is in Castel dell'Alpi, in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, in the Cà Borelli area. When we arrive, the sun has just dawned and the first colors of autumn are still preserved among the beech branches. As soon as I arrive, amidst the curious glances for my foreign face and for my evident extraneousness to the art of hunting, I immediately feel a pleasant humanity: young faces and straight faces of men who have experience and knowledge of the surrounding valleys. Several generations united in sharing a passion: the boar, even before the hunt. In these parts hunting goes beyond the simple conventional view that many have of this activity. Here it takes on an ancient flavor, preserves a tradition that is handed down from father to son, has strong roots in the respect and care of the territory and the animals that inhabit it.

Between a coffee and a few chats, the "post office" is organized. I am equipped with a reflective vest and a transceiver that will be used to communicate with the members of the team. I never imagined finding myself in front of an organizational machine so perfect and scrupulous in all its details.

The sky is clear and the mood of the hunters is full of optimism, which can be understood from the smiles and jokes they exchange before going into the woods. As soon as they enter the hunting area, the expressions of these men become more serious and circumspect: "the wild boar is an animal with extraordinary intuitive and olfactory abilities", one of them whispers to me in a low voice, inviting me to follow his steps so as not to make other shrubs crackle on the ground. It is a journey to travel in silence, the only way to communicate is the sign language that the hunters' alphabet knows. The footprints marked in the morning by the tracing are identified and new ones are sought. Andrea points out the base of a tree with the trunk covered with dry mud: the wild boars go to rub themselves to remove the dirt from the fur. These and more are the signs that the hunter's keen eye can detect. Care must be taken not to emit any noise other than those of nature. The team is streamlined along the way, everyone is positioned in the place attributed to him. There were three of us before closing the circle of the perimeter of the stop. There is a ford on a stream to cross, then a steep section to climb. Arriving at the established point, the good smells of the forest begin to penetrate my nose: they are fragrances of fern, of wet wood, of dry leaves. I sit on a stone softened by moss, take my camera and start looking around for details that the beauty of the place hides among the branches; but the shot I'm looking for today is him: the wild boar. Andrea carefully loads the rifle, more than twenty minutes have passed, and he confides to me that that "waiting" is already hunting. That's right: wild boar hunting is a discipline where you have to know how to manage time patiently without losing concentration and above all always keeping hearing and sight coordinated with each other. From the headset we get the first reports from Daniele (Baldi): the huntsman as well as the canaio who, together with Giovanni (Gitti) and Luca (Santi), begins to urge the running and the nose of the dogs. They swap positions and divide the territory. They are the "directors" who control and intuit the cunning defense strategies of animals.

An hour has just passed when, from the radio, the breathless voice of the canai reaches us, warning us that they have found a herd of about fifteen wild boars. Dogs "beat to standstill" in the vicinity of a thorn grove. A feeling of fury, halfway between excitement and fear, also conquers me, a mere spectator, but serves to understand how much adrenaline can be generated in a hunter. The barking of the dogs gets closer, I hear it half in the earpiece and the other echoed in the valley. They wander around the shoulder of the mountain in front of us. Andrea's gaze becomes more attentive and his hands hold the weapon ready to aim. It shows me what, presumably, the passage of the animals should be if they were to deviate towards us. I aim the target precisely at that point, when I am surprised by the first shots that echo dry through the valley. From the radio they tell us that they have taken two. Even if briefly, I perceive, amid the rustle of the radio, an exchange of compliments and jokes. The hunt continues along with the wait. Many hours have passed since we reached the station, yet the time, precisely that of waiting, does not bore, does not distress, on the contrary, it runs fast, between a jolt and another determined by the warnings of the canai that indicate their position and the direction of the wild boar flight. The sun revolves around us, we hear more shots, they seem to come from the other side of the mountain, but the wild boar I was waiting for has not yet entered my objective. Downstream they took others. It is four in the afternoon, when we are told that the dogs are exhausted and that the last herd sighted has escaped from the outlined circle of the post offices. The joke can be said to be over.

With Andrea we continue the way back, the temperature has become more rigid but in some places the earth is warm from the morning sun. The recovery of the beasts is organized. One of them is right on one side of the river. I see with my eyes for the first time a boar. It is not large in size, I approach it to observe it closely. At the na-rics I reach its smell, it is strong, it tastes of earth and blood. “It's the smell of fear” I think. We resume the journey and along the way we rebuild the team in the morning. Along the way, the experiences of the day are discussed and exchanged, the opportunities missed and those that have been scored, strategies are drawn up for the next time. I listen to their speeches with interest, I begin to understand better what their voices are saying. We return again to the welcoming meeting place in the morning, the sun has been hiding for a while and the hill has changed colors, a few cigarettes and a few more comments on the fate of the day, before refreshing ourselves with a plate of hot soup. I wanted to take home the shot I had imagined, but photography is a bit like hunting: you never know what you may encounter. Today, however, I discovered the mysterious charm - and as old as the hunting man, but above all I discovered the world of hunters which, despite the many clichés, is made up of love for nature and sincere loyalty towards nature. animal.