The reply to the LIPU
Paraphrasing an old saying, it is appropriate to say that the lipu he loses his hair but not the vice. A vice that has now, over the years, become stale and even boring, with press releases swollen with pomposity, final sentences, statements and visions that are completely false and out of any scientific and legal logic. The latest press release from this self-styled environmental association lists a series of "gifts" that the Regions would have made to Italian hunters in defiance of Community directives and Ispra indications. Without beating about the bush, we want to respond point by point to Lipu's specious, inaccurate and misleading observations. According to the recent revision of the Key concepts, the closing dates of some species, such as thrushes, woodcocks and some ducks, place Italy, and we underline Italy only, in the strange position of having, for the aforementioned birds, from 20 to 30 days earlier than in all other Member States.
A singular case
So much so that the European Commission has defined our country as a singularity on the European scene. This alone would make it clear what a harmful scientific anomaly our country is forced to suffer. Lipu, as it always happens to do, omits some legal details that European and Italian regulations allow for the drafting of hunting calendars: since directive 79/409 of 1979 there are paragraphs 2.7.3 and 2.7.10 which allow, where there are accompanying scientific studies, to increase hunting times for the species, which was reaffirmed among other things in the recent sentences of the Tuscany and Umbria Regional Administrative Courts. Furthermore, even if Lipu pretends to ignore it, there is always the overlapping decade that allows a Region to increase the hunting times by ten days. Finally, Lipu also fails to say that in the "NADEG" (Expert Group On The Birds And Habitats Directives) committee where the Key Concepts were updated, our country was subject to of profound observations and harsh criticisms from the countries of the Mediterranean basin (and not only from them), for the enormous discrepancy of the pre-nuptial migration periods and for the methodology used by Ispra which was different from that requested by the Committee itself.
Management plans
We then come to the evergreen story of the 17 species in a poor state of conservation. It should be remembered that the famous SPEC wording, so dear and so useful to Lipu, which classifies birds on the basis of their conservation status scale, is not taken as a reference by the European Commission, which instead trusts the IUCN which, through studies and monitors globally, constantly updates the situation for each species. Finally, and with the usual nonchalance, Lipu also omits to say that special management plans are envisaged for species in difficulty, such as those already active for the lark and partridge and that, as far as we know, the current The government is finally preparing also for pochard and lapwing (source: Libera Caccia).