Dear Director, We could not help but notice this morning, in the newspaper you directed, a box which reports - without signature, but it is not necessary, we know who wrote it - the usual falsehoods of those who, unable to do anything useful and concrete, can only criticize and try to discredit what others do. We obviously refer to those few lines, the result of the intellectual effort of some fringes and small local groups of theanimal rights associations, who for days have been spreading false news about the work of hunters in the emergency caused by theCovid-19 epidemic. To them, and to others like them, all the hunting associations have already answered - indeed, they anticipated them - of a national character.
We are therefore surprised to re-read the same things, already widely refuted, in his newspaper, even if reported in minimal part compared to the leaflet circulated. The biggest lie - because that's what it is - is that donations from hunters were made with state money, therefore of citizens and that in essence they have made themselves beautiful without effort. Leaving aside the not secondary question that if there are those who receive money from citizens in the form of loans, contributions, "projects", consultations and various agreements, it is precisely the animal rights world, it is good to specify that the Italian hunting associations and the hunting world in general they do not receive any direct funding from the state.
In reality, what they call financing, it is not known whether out of ignorance or in bad faith, is nothing more than a partial refund - yes, because not only the State does not give, but withholds - of an additional quota to state and regional concessions that every single hunter pays every year to be divided among the hunting associations in exchange for what has been done in terms of environmental wildlife management. So, every single euro donated by hunters on the occasion of this as well as many other emergencies, commitment, came from the pockets of hunters! In the form of cash donations, health equipment, volunteer work, support for civil protection, community service, help to needy families, and more, the hunting world has donated to the State, or to citizens a little less than two million euros.
Other than a few thousand euros! Can they say the same? And the Covid-19 emergency aside, that the resources that hunters make available to the community through their licenses and permits every year (which we prudently quantify in over 200 million euros) is money used by the State and by the Regions in many spending chapters for citizens, one for all their health, wouldn't it be better and more correct to remember it? And we do not mention what has been done in terms of community services in the form of voluntary working hours (free laws) for management operations in favor of the Public Administration. Here we are talking about nothing, the usual arguments, whose purpose is always and only one: to attack the hunters and hunters. Once again, however, hunters show themselves to be actors of small and large gestures of responsibility in response to an emergency that today more than ever asks to make sacrifices and confronts new difficulties that can only be overcome through unity and collaboration. With all due respect to those who just want to divide!