Federcaccia takes stock of the situation at the end of the hunting season: hunters seem to be decreasing every year by about 4%, the season ended almost without incidents.
The Hunting Associations, including Federcaccia, have always been committed to an educational campaign aimed at promoting greater safety in hunting and respect for the environment, as well as promoting initiatives aimed at bringing young people closer to the hunting world.
Taking stock of the situation, as regards the past hunting season, the president of Federaccia Pisa, Marco Salvadori, explains "A good year, even with the numbers that inexorably tell us that hunters continue to decline. Every year we lose 3 or 4 percent, or for our area for 150 new cards are 300 those who leave. A fact that now seems physiological ".
Salvadori then continues with satisfaction, "A year that still leaves us satisfied, precisely, because there have been no serious problems because a lot has been hunted and always respecting the environment, the forest, the animals. I repeat, he hunted without significant incidents even if often the numbers of accidents are inflated without understanding that unfortunately they also happen to those who practice hunting like any other human activity ”.
Almost 11 thousand hunters live in the province of Pisa alone, mostly located between Valdera, Valdarno and Valdicecina and the remainder divided between San Miniato, Volterra and Pomarance. According to Salvadori a reversal of the trend regarding the number of hunters is seriously unlikely as the handing down of family traditions is gradually running outAdded to this are social changes, the growth of urbanization, not to mention the costs of equipment which in times of crisis certainly do not facilitate the approach to the hunting world.
Federcaccia and the other hunting associations therefore undertake initiatives aimed at bringing young people closer to hunting; in fact Salvadori explains, “We have organized a course for aspiring young hunters in Volterra that is giving us satisfaction and some more hope: there are 20 members, all between 20 and 30 years old. It is a good starting point. It is an initiative that we will have to replicate in other areas of our territory as well ”.
This type of initiatives by Federcaccia and other associations are integrated with the ongoing campaign aimed at promoting safety and education. both for those who are preparing to become hunters, with the organization of courses to prepare for the qualification exams for obtaining the hunting license, and for those who are already hunters, with targeted campaigns. The decrease in hunting accidents and injuries encountered in the hunting season ended is the first positive result of these initiatives.
As for the question of hunting dogs, sometimes victims of aggression by the wild during the hunts, Salvadori states, “We record several losses but not because the dog was shot, but above all because of the animals and more particularly in the wild boar hunt which is very popular. Suffice it to say that in the province of Pisa, especially between Valdera and Valdicecina, it has 6000 members in the teams that organize the jokes ”.