Hunting and Fauna: wolf emergency in the province of Arezzo, incidents of mauled domestic animals increase; flocks and road safety are increasingly in danger.
The wolf returns. And it does very serious damage. Brought to some areas of the province of Arezzo, naively hoping that he would hunt wild boars, the herds instead hunt down and tear the much more harmless sheep to pieces. With terrible consequences for the flocks: Luciano Lalli is a sheep farmer who has always settled in Terranuova Bracciolini. The raids of the wolves massacred his cattle, reducing them by a fifth: the herds of this ferocious wild animal, protected by the law, in a few months tore up 63 sheep, out of almost 300 total heads of its flock: "The damage is to to say the least very serious: the direct damages of the lost animals, which have a value ranging from 200 to 400 euros each, are added to the indirect ones since the number of pregnant sheep that abort due to fright increases significantly ".
But it does not end there, explains the farmer from Arezzo: "In addition to the insult: the health legislation does not provide for the burying of the mauled animals, but for incineration in authorized facilities, which costs another 10 thousand euros". What the Lalli farm denounces, together with many other farmers in the area and the entire province, is the impossibility of defending themselves: "The wolf is a protected animal - he concludes - but who protects us and our flocks? If my sheep cause damage, I must compensate the injured. Here, for the damage caused by the wolves, who pays? ”.
in short the Wolves they are becoming an increasingly pressing problem for farmers and ranchers. According to Coldiretti Arezzo "there is a need to rebalance the presence of the wolf and other wild species with economic activities, starting with breeding: the abandonment of the mountain by man, the abundance of food and 'introduction of wild animals that are not really traditional for our lands, were the determining factors that have led species such as the wolf - but not only - from particularly protected species at risk of extinction, to very high presences and diffusion, absolutely not compatible with our territory".
This is why the damage is multiplying, especially to the flocks, but to all the livestock: “A situation that is creating a growing alarm in the countryside - underlines Coldiretti - and a situation that is now unsustainable for our farms. What we want is to have no more damage by avoiding "easy solutions" of fencing entire plots and stables: Tuscany will never become famous for its easy fences to protect wild animals.
We need to give quick answers, explains the president of Coldiretti Arezzo, Tulio Marcelli, also because the situation is becoming increasingly difficult: “Tuscany is the region, in Europe, with the highest rate of density of ungulates. It is a problem that goes beyond the purely agricultural issue: it now concerns the entire community "continues Marcelli." We are facing a real emergency: in ten years the number of predators (wild boar, wolves, roe deer, deer, fallow deer , birds, etc.) has taken on a dimension that is no longer sustainable by the territories, with strong repercussions on tourism and on the products of the undergrowth that no longer exist ".
Another problem linked to the excessive presence of ungulates "concerns - according to Coldiretti - public safety in a general sense as these animals, in addition to being a serious threat to road safety, especially in some areas, make hilly and mountainous terrain more unstable , helping to increase the risk of landslides and landslides ".
"The work to be done together with the local authorities will be - concludes Marcelli - to provide precise guidelines on hunting wildlife management and to initiate all those actions aimed at re-establishing a balanced and sustainable relationship between wild animals, crops, livestock and the economy of the business".
28 January 2013
Source: LaNazione-Arezzo