CASTELLAMONTE. Double in action from Sunday 27 September, but the hunting season opens with an element of novelty that directly brings into play the massive presence of boars on the Canavese hills and the continuous occurrence of accidents, caused precisely by ungulates, which are now systematically approaching urban agglomerations. This phenomenon has led a group of hunters to launch an appeal to the mayors of the Alto Canavese municipalities asking them to grant them a special authorization to access the country roads, currently forbidden to the transit of unauthorized vehicles, during the hunts.
"At the basis of this request is the need to contain the number of ungulates, so as to limit the damage that animals cause to agricultural crops, but above all to ensure greater safety for those traveling on our roads, regardless of the vehicle - explains the deputy mayor. of Castellamonte,John Maddio, former president of the To4 Alpine District -. What we ask for is an authorization, which can also come through an ordinance of the mayors, in derogation from the law in force, to be able to practice (as happens for the containment interventions that are made by the wildcontrollers in the closed hunting period) those tracks , those dirt roads, where we could not go with our own means, facilitating the achievement of some parts of the hunting territory ».
Wild boars have multiplied dramatically throughout the country so that their current population is estimated to be around one million head. Last month, the Ivrea Management Committee of the ATC Torino 1 had promoted a drastic intervention to contain ungulates in the territories of the Municipalities of Castellamonte, Baldissero, Bairo, Torre and in the neighboring areas where hunting for ungulates is allowed. The initiative, aimed at culling a certain number of wild boars, happened to have come right in the days of the tragedy of Cefalù where a pensioner was killed and his wife injured by a large ungulate. "We want to avoid that these things happen to us too - adds Maddio -, for this reason our intervention has the primary purpose precisely the containment of the number of animals".
The Municipality of Castellamonte is preparing a draft resolution
which will be adopted by the executive headed by the mayor Paolo Mascheroni and then transmitted to the other Municipalities. The goal is to make the first citizens aware of the problem. "It would be a concrete signal if the fellow administrators adopted it too," Maddio observes.
Dario Ruffatto
The Sentinel of Canavese