Hunting and Fauna: Lucca, pigeons threaten local agriculture, the Italian Farmers' Confederation requests the opening of hunting in derogation.
It is still alarm-pigeons in the Plain of Lucca. The Italian Farmers Confederation, in fact, has collected, in these days, numerous reports of fields 'devastated' by the passage of pigeons that have thwarted the work of farmers. "This is the moment of sowing - explains the coordinator of the Lucca area of the CIA, Massimo Del Carlo - and, therefore, the most delicate moment: the reports that have arrived are very worrying, because, according to what has been recorded, it seems that the pigeons have shifted their focus from sunflowers to soybeans. The reason is simple: after the havoc made in recent years, our farmers have no longer sown sunflowers and, therefore, the pigeons have found other seeds to eat ".
For Del Carlo: “What has been done so far has to some extent curbed the problem - he says - but it is still not enough, as the problem recurs. The pigeons have to eat and, after the sunflower seeds, they are now 'adapting' to eating soy ”.
"For this reason - concludes Del Carlo - we invite the bodies responsible to evaluate whether, for our territory, it is not the case to include pigeons in those species for which the opening of hunting in derogation is envisaged, such as for starlings. , at least for the time necessary to bring the population back to an acceptable, manageable and no longer harmful number ”.
21 May 2014
Source: LaGazzettadiLucca