They are not as widespread as wild boars, so prolific, especially during the period of stopping the action of hunters imposed by the coronavirus, as to colonize large areas of the Bassa. But also fallow deer they begin to seriously worry the winegrowers. The complaints collected by the mayor of Galzignano (Padua), Riccardo Masin from the winemakers who work the land near the border with Battaglia, leave no room for doubt. Small groups of fallow deer and roe deer, in fact, they begin to target the shoots of the vines. And their raids are more and more frequent. The presence of the species on the slopes of the hills, in the area surrounding Galzignano, is by no means attributable to reckless population actions as in the case of ungulates.
But it has precise historical reasons. The fallow deer, many years ago populated the hunting reserve of the Della Francesca counts, former owners of the Catajo Castle. Soon the disuse of the reserve meant that the animals could easily cross the fences and spread into the surrounding countryside. This time ending up in the sights no more of wealthy fans of the shotgun, but of the selecontrollers called by the Park Authority to eradicate the hills from the scourge of non-native fauna. "Unlike the ungulates, Riccardo Masin, provincial president of Federcaccia as well as the first citizen of Galzignano specifies they do not have a very high reproduction rate, limiting itself to a ratio of 1 to 2 per specimen.
The trouble is that they belong to a case that can be traced back to goats. They do not devastate the territories, sometimes digging it deep as in the case of wild boars, but they graze the shoots, constituting not just a danger not only for the winegrowers, but for all the horticultural growers in the area ». Perhaps the fact that even their killing does not include such striking data as in the case of wild boars, has induced the Park Authority not to keep an exact account of the killing.
But the eliminations are there. So much so that a few carcasses of deer killed end up, in the number of two or three heads a month, at the slaughterhouse of Solesino, specialized in the treatment and trade of the meat of the animals killed on the hills. "From now on, however, the President of the Park Authority, Massimo Campagnolo, promises we will keep an updated account of the fallow deer as well, which are also the object of attention on the part of selecontrollers ». Moreover, the sightings of groups of fallow deer have not been isolated right next to the agricultural estates in the area east of Galzignano (Il Gazzettino).
Fallow deer in deer after roe deer is the one that has the highest "Annual Profit Increment" (IUA), it is an allochthonous species, in fact it comes from Mesopotamia, in Italy it is said that it was brought for food, by the Romans, x other naturalists, even the Phoenicians?
This species is the one that in nature causes more damage to agriculture, because in addition to feeding on vine shoots, it barks the plants; while the deer does it in the absence of other bark to feed; the fallow deer bark them almost for pleasure; winemakers are right to complain; my personal opinion "people hand the rifle before it's too late" !!!