The imaginative press release of the LAV with which the Ministers of Health, Ecological Transition and Agricultural and Forestry Policies are asked to exclude migratory birds, in particular aquatic birds, from the list of huntable species for the next hunting season, because they are considered the main carriers of avian flu virus. Evidently at the LAV they forget how the National Reference Center for Avian Influenza, established at the Zooprophylactic Institute of the Venezie, has reiterated over and over again in its official press releases the need to:
- Elevate the early warning system in wild birds (therefore even more so those that can be hunted) and in domestic poultry through the early detection and reporting to the competent health authorities of any suspected event of avian flu.
- Strengthen active and passive surveillance activities in avifauna, with the collaboration of all the institutions and associations involved (therefore also hunting), through the detection of sick or dead birds, with particular reference to water birds as well as to birds of prey.
The Ministry of Health, in the communication Prot. 0023822-DGSAF-MDS-P, of 4 November 2020, which suspended the use of vivid references of Anseriformi and Caradriformi, explicitly wrote that hunting is a useful means of monitoring avian influenza, and that for this reason it must be maintained, also with collaboration agreements between institutions and associations of hunters. A confirmation that the hunting world is considered fundamental for this important health surveillance task, in compliance with biosecurity measures, in order to minimize the risks of transmission of avian influenza. It is therefore not surprising that the LAV, once again, after having done so for the Covid-19 epidemic, does not care to affirm and sustain inaccuracies to carry out its ideological battle against hunting. In this case, a national institution such as the Ministry of Health denied the unlikely proposals, Federcaccia hopes that the same behavior will be held by the other institutions.