The Puglia Region allocates funds to the Territorial Hunting Area of the Province of Lecce to support the hunting activity, unleashing the furies of the animal rights activists.
The regional funds allocated to the Lecce ATC, a total of 180 thousand euros, should be allocated to activities in support of hunting activities and interventions for environmental improvement for wildlife purposes but the environmentalists of the National League for the defense of the Dog do not seem to agreement and trigger a heated controversy.
The allocated money would have already been allocated by the ATC Management Committee, with appropriate provisions, for a tender from 90 thousand euros for the supply of hares of national origin for the purpose of wildlife restocking and for a call for the same amount for access to economic incentives in favor of owners and tenants of those rural estates subject to interventions for environmental improvement for wildlife purposes.
In particular, the Salento exponent of the animal rights movement, Maria Teresa Corsi, disputing the purpose of the allocation of funds to the ATC, inveighs against the President of the Province of Lecce, Antonio Gabellone, "Dear President, while the government is cutting pensions for many poor elderly people who can't get by, we believe the decision to allocate tens of thousands of euros to hunting is unjustified."
The animalist controversy continues, “Why support an activity that is pure fun for so many enthusiasts who should, instead, compensate us with a special tax for all the lead they disseminate in the countryside?".
Continuing, Corsi suggests, "Make better use of all that money and don't go to fund a sector that in our opinion just doesn't need of any public contribution, especially considering the times of crisis ".
Finally he states concluding Corsi, “I really don't know how expenses of this magnitude can be justified. Now all I have to do is launch an appeal to Gabellone to change register ”.
The response of the President of the Province was not long in coming and so he responded to the animal rights attacks: “First of all we are talking about regional funds that we allocate following very specific rules. However, I am in total harmony with Maria Teresa Corsi, so much so that I made a request to the Union of Italian Provinces to be the bearer of a proposal to amend the law that regulates the matter in order to obtain more funds to be allocated to the Provincial Wildlife Observatory of Calimera ".
The President Gabellone refers to the Regional Law 27/98 which governs the protection of homeothermic wildlife, the activities of protection and planning of environmental wildlife resources as well as hunting.
The changes to the law in question requested by the Province, announced by Gabellone, they refer in particular to article 54 concerning the methods of distribution of funds from regional taxes.