Hunting and Fauna: Cosenza, project on wild boar as an environmental indicator

Hunting and Fauna: Cosenza, project on wild boar as an environmental indicator created by the ASL in collaboration with wild boar hunters.

The Provincial President of the Italian Federation of Hunting of Cosenza Francesco Antonio Greco reports an important project coordinated by the veterinary manager of the Hygiene Area of Foods of Animal Origin Dr. Sandro Stancati and carried out thanks to the collaboration of the wild boar hunters of the ATC CS3 and CS1 with Arpa Calabria and Azienda Sanitaria di Cosenza - Functional area Hygiene of Foods of Animal Origin, which saw the wild boar species used as an indicator for environmental monitoring.

Specifically, the project, the first results of which were presented during a subsequent workshop recently held in Cosenza, is aimed at monitoring and mapping environmental radioactivity in the province of Cosenza. The search, which would not have been possible without the help of the 28 hunting teams of boar of the two Atc CS3 and CS2 that provided the tissues and organs necessary for carrying out the laboratory tests, was strongly supported by the presidents of the same, Marcello Canonaco and Saverio Bloise, as well as by Federcaccia from Cosenza, which took steps to raise awareness and inform its members belonging to the teams employed, immediately proved to be willing to give their contribution for the success of the project.

Once again, by selflessly collaborating with the local authorities and scientific institutes, hunters have shown that they are not only an integral and active part of society, but also play an irreplaceable role of supervision and control in terms of territory, environment and fauna.

Extract from the Project Report "Wild boar as an indicator for environmental monitoring".

The Project for the monitoring and mapping of environmental radioactivity, drawn up in November 2014 between the Regional Agency for the Protection of the Environment of the Calabria Region and the Provincial Health Authority of Cosenza, was born for the purpose of updating the RETERESORAD1. The Network analyzes the space-time trend of the concentrations of radioelements in the matrices of the various environmental and food sectors affected by the diffusion of radioactivity and its transfer to humans.

ARPACAL works for the protection, control, recovery of the environment and for the prevention and promotion of collective health in order to allow maximum effectiveness in the identification and removal of risk factors for humans, fauna, for the flora and the physical environment. By virtue of this task, the protocol was promoted with the Provincial Health Authority of Cosenza - Veterinary Service Area B - Functional Area for Hygiene of Foods of Animal Origin, which establishing the procedures concerning the visits of wild boars killed during the hunting season and in selective plans intended for self-consumption throughout the ASP territory, proved to be the most suitable partner for mapping the territory through radiometric analysis of wild boar meat.

The Project was effectively implemented thanks to the contribution of the ATC2 of Cosenza (in particular ATC CS3 and ATC CS2) which organize the teams of hunters authorized to kill the wild during the hunting season, also collecting the orographic and zoognostic data of the wild boar, giving the matrices at the sanitation points of the ASP. The teams of hunters, directed by Dr. S. Stancati, veterinary manager of the Hygiene Area of Foods of Animal Origin, collected the samples necessary for the analyzes, integrating in many cases, the collection of the meat of the slaughtered wild boar, with the soil of the killing site.

The matrices were then sent to the Physical Laboratory Service of the ArpaCal Provincial Department which carried out the analyzes. The considerations in this article photograph the situation as of April 24, 2015, when, out of the 85 meat samples and 7 soil samples received from the first year, 64 meat samples and all of the land were analyzed. The estimate of "radioactive contamination" in the laboratory is based on activity measurements, by analysis with gamma spectrometry, which allows the recognition of the various radionuclides present in each analyzed sample and provides, through a quantitative analysis, the values of their concentrations of activity.

(June 21, 2015)