Flavio Tosi, number one of the Veneto regional section of the Italian Federation of Hunting, decided to send a letter to Luca Zaia, governor of Veneto, Joseph Pan, regional councilor for hunting, Robert Ciambetti, president of the Veneto Regional Council, and the council group leaders. The letter serves to request an important reintroduction starting from the hunting calendar of the 2016-2017 season, that of red partridge, which should return to the huntable species. Why is Federcaccia Veneto so interested in Alectoris Rufa?
The association considers it appropriate to reintegrate the species even in subsequent hunting seasons, even if the word "reintroduction" is underlined in the letter, that is to say the translocation aimed at re-establishing a population of certain animal entities in its range of documented natural presence in historical times. Reference is made to the reintroduction of the red-legged partridge because this species was indigenous and well integrated in suitable areas (Lessini Mountains, Berici Hills and Treviso Prealps, as recalled by the Federation), in the specific Veneto hill areas: consequently, the bird should be considered huntable at least from hunting season 1991-1992.
The letter also explains that in 2002-2003 the regional hunting calendar imposed limits on the levy only for tourist-hunting companies. The red partridge has been described by Federcaccia Veneto as a sedentary species, with a suspicious and shrewd nature, with a gregarious life that disappears only during the brooding period. The flight is fast and elegant, almost always a short distance from the ground. Furthermore, the nourishment of the animal in question is represented above all by vegetable substances such as seeds, herbs, roots and leaves, while in spring it also begins to feed on insects, spiders and other small invertebrates. So it is a game that knows how to defend itself well and is able to reproduce perfectly in nature.
Tosi wanted to explain to the recipients of the letter that nowadays this partridge can be found and hunted in Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany. The only region of Northern Italy in which it has been eliminated from huntable species is precisely the Veneto. ISPRA is opposed to inclusion, according to which such an operation would represent an introduction into nature of an alien species, therefore a practice prohibited by law and an operation that cannot be shared from a biological and technical point of view. Federcaccia Veneto, however, concluded the letter by specifying how the reintroduction would in no way be a natural hybridization with the rock partridge, whose range in the region is above 800-1000 meters above sea level.