Fox Hunt: Ferrara, ISPRA dictates the conditions for proceeding with the selective collection of foxes; groped to prevent a priori the damage caused by these animals.
With a letter to the Province of Ferrara, the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research dictates its conditions for starting the collection of the fox: before culling 350 animals, the damage caused by these animals to the banks and farms must be prevented. . The controlled culls of foxes, 350 animals provided for in the three-year provincial plan, have the go-ahead from ISPRA, the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, only as regards the Mezzano Valley, in the Zrc and Atc "where they are suspended game inputs ". The favorable opinion for the extension to other areas of the province is instead conditioned by a series of indications, which Ispra has put in writing in a letter sent to the Province.
Before breaking down the Foxes, in any case with practices that "exclude any recourse to hunting, and provide for the exclusive collection in the den, in open areas without the aid of dogs during the threshing period, night shooting with small caliber rifles and the aid of the lighthouse ”, You have to essentially try first with“ damage prevention measures ”that can be caused by them.
The risks of stability of the embankments, as explained for example in the letter from ISPRA, should rather be prevented by "an adequate restructuring of the embankments, so as to avoid having to continually intervene for their safety when weakened by the presence of tunnels and / or burrows dug by wild mammals (nutria, fox, badger) ". Ispra also provides advice: it is better to build the embankments with an internal core of sand and keep them clean of grass and shrubs.
Do foxes kill wild animals? This problem can be prevented by suspending "the introduction of game, in particular artificially reared game which, as is well known - explains Ispra - is endowed with poor defense capacity against predators". Finally, with regard to raids on farms, "the impact of the fox can be prevented through the adequate mechanical protection of the structures and the night shelter of the animals".
In these cases, foxes can only be killed if the burrows on the embankments are certainly attributable to them or if there are certainties on damage to farms. Mauro Malaguti (PDL) had raised the pro-fox controversy in a regional interpellation where, among other things, there was talk of "bloody" methods of killing.
17 April 2013
Source: LaNuovaFerrara