Hunting and Fauna: Trieste, too many wild boars, pigeons and seagulls, “It's a real emergency”; there are over 30 thousand pigeons and three thousand "cocai" in the province. Institutions appeal: "People stop giving them food".
Province of Trieste 2014: about 210 thousand inhabitants, plus 30 thousand pigeons, 3 thousand gulls better known as "cocai", and 400 boars. A worrying reality, especially if it is considered by overcoming that concept of good-natured manner, which permeates the behavior of many Trieste inhabitants "unfortunately ready to feed these animals, thus creating the prerequisite for their proliferation, a dangerous factor for public health. ". This was the complaint that emerged strongly yesterday, during a meeting that saw the Municipality as protagonists, represented by the Councilor for the Environment Umberto Laureni, the Vice President of the Province, Igor Dolenc, the Commander of the Environmental Police of Trieste, Ilario Zuppani and numerous members of associations that deal with the problem. “We must understand - Laureni began - that a new culture is needed on the subject. Pigeons, wild boars and seagulls are able in perfect autonomy to find the food necessary for their survival, without having to resort to the unsolicited help of man. All those who feed these species - he added - are responsible for a situation which, in addition to being dangerous for the safety of people, and I am referring specifically to wild boars, is harmful to public health ”.
“Just think of the pigeons that go to nibble on the tables in the bar - he specified - and the seagulls now used to fishing in garbage bins. I urged Fipe to invite the public exhibitors of the city to equip themselves with containers with lids for the snacks placed on the outdoor tables, today exposed to the passage of pigeons and seagulls with all the consequences of the case ". “Only an awareness on the part of the entire population - concluded the member of the Cosolini junta - will lead to concrete results. Institutions and the environmental police, which are moreover made up of a few units, cannot stem the phenomenon of the proliferation of these species ".
Enrico Benussi, faunist and expert ornithologist, intervened to highlight the seriousness of the problem: «A few data are enough to outline the situation in the city. In 1987 on the provincial territory there was only one pair of mature gulls, that is, able to procreate. Today we have 500 pairs of this type, out of a total of almost 3 thousand gulls present. The annual increase in the seagull population is 10,2 percent. In the last twenty years - he continued - the wild boars have gone from a hundred to 400, while the pigeons are approaching 30 thousand. The law must finally allow intervention on the reproduction of these three species - he confidently declared - explaining to the so-called "seagulls", that is, those ladies who think they are doing a worthy action by feeding them, which in reality are the creators of a serious damage ".
“We are in the presence of a real emergency - he concluded - also because the open-air landfills of Koper and Sesana represent, for the seagulls, an easily accessible food reservoir. We will have to discuss it with the Slovenian authorities ”. Dolenc explained that “there is no single and definitive solution, but measures must be found to allow coexistence between man and seagulls, pigeons and wild boars. The reasoning is simple - he continued -: the more we feed them the more they multiply and we find ourselves with urbanized animals, that is, used to finding food in the urban fabric.
The Province is in difficulty - he concluded - because we have only five members in the body of the Environmental Police ”. Zuppani reiterated that "it is not enough to involve the institutions, but it is the citizens who must collaborate and understand situations and problems". Nicola Bressi, director of the Municipality's scientific museums, invited everyone to “also remember the rats and the tiger mosquito. Wild boars, pigeons and seagulls should not be helped, because they are already capable of growing in numbers and thriving on their own ”.
(21 August 2014)
Source: IlPiccolo-Geolocal