LIPU statements
On its website and Facebook page, the National LIPU issued a statement on the hunting season that has just ended, with attacks on the Regions and the hope of a new infringement procedure by the European Commission on the Italian hunting calendars. It is no news that LIPU, at the beginning and end of the hunting season, issues alarmist communications, but totally unfounded scientifically and legally, in which it paints disastrous pictures for the Italian fauna, for whose conservation hunting would be the most serious problem. Such an approach, seasoned with easy piety, certainly pays off in terms of consensus and cards, but can we say that it is marked by serious environmental wildlife management? The same reflections arise in the face of the statements contained in the LIPU press release, which can be defined as one of the best examples of disinformation seen in recent times.
Federcaccia's clarifications
Let us then clarify the reality of the facts on the closure dates and the conservation status of the huntable species:
- The Key concepts 2021 document, drawn up by the European Commission, denies the ISPRA data and positions claimed by LIPU for the woodcock and pintail species, stating in a trans-national approach that the pre-nuptial migration begins in February in the European area which includes Italy .
- On the song thrush, redwing, fieldfare and teal species, the same document highlights the disconcerting discrepancies between the Italian data and those of the other Mediterranean countries, and explains them with the possibility of having confused the winter movements with the actual migration, which in Italy would surprisingly be up to a month and a half ahead of France, Spain and Croatia.
- LIPU carefully avoids quoting the EU Hunting Regulation Guide which, in paragraphs 2.7.3 and 2.7.10, allows Member State Regions to use regional scientific data to support deviations from national KC data, precisely what they have done the Puglia Region and the Veneto Region.
- LIPU carefully avoids mentioning that from this year ISPRA has legitimized the use of the overlapping decade, thus allowing the hunting to end in the same decade in which the pre-nuptial migration begins. This allows hunting to end on 31 January for all aquatic species apart from the teal, which is instead the subject of two recent scientific publications with satellite telemetry which demonstrated the start of migration in February.
- LIPU forgets that the drafting of the Key concepts 2021 document took place in Italy in a way that did not respond to the recommendations of the European Commission, which had asked for consultation with stakeholders (never achieved) and the priority use of the most scientific publications recent.
- LIPU carefully avoids pointing out that the European Migration Atlas demonstrates exactly that migration in Italy begins in different periods between groups of regions, as well as having the intrinsic weakness of having used the "indirect recaptures" due to the sample insufficient data.
- With regard to the phantom 17 species in "bad state of conservation" we can only reiterate that whether the species are in a bad state or not, it cannot be LIPU or BirdLife to establish it with the invention of the SPEC classification, which has no official value, besides which is intrinsically inadequate to assess whether a species can be hunted or not.
- Curiously, the LIPU cites the sentence of the Veneto TAR but forgets the rulings of the TAR and the Council of State on the calendars of Tuscany, Sardinia, and Umbria which legitimized the closure of the hunt on January 31st.
A greater commitment to make
To conclude, no Italian Region has violated anything, the Management Plans have been applied for measures concerning hunting and also in the environmental field by some regions. Of course, more needs to be done to conserve and restore natural habitats: this is where hunters and true conservationists should work together. Unfortunately, LIPU does not appear among the latter (Italian Hunting Federation Press Office).
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