The European Parliament talks about live calls for migratory hunting; Zanoni's amendments approved.
In recent days, the Environment Commission approved a report asking the European Commission for greater protection and greater measures for animal welfare; the amendments by MEP Andrea Zanoni approved, including the one that provides that "the European framework law on animal welfare must include measures aimed at solving the problem of the possession of wild birds, captured or bred, used as live calls in hunting migratory birds, in conditions incompatible with their nature ".
Live calls are generally those birds used for migratory hunting of species such as the Lark, the Song Thrush, the Redwing, the Fieldfare, the Blackbird, the Chaffinch, the Peppola, the Pipit and the Prispolone, especially in regions such as Tuscany, Lombardy and Veneto where this hunting method is part of the hunting tradition. The capture of these decoy birds is practiced with bird nets in derogation of the Birds Directive 147/2009 / EU which actually prohibits this practice.
According to the animal rights activists, the decoy birds would be subjected to a drastic and cruel treatment that would upset their biological cycle making them believe that they are already in winter, the nuptial period, so as to make them emit calls even in autumn when in fact hunting is practiced. migratory.
Furthermore, according to environmentalists, the keeping of these birds would be a nightmare segregation with very precarious conditions that would lead many to certain death; precisely because of the high mortality rate of live calls, new catches are made every year.
IdV MEP Andrea Zanoni, vice president of the Animal Welfare intergroup in the European Parliament, commented on the issue, "We must put an end to the barbaric, uncivilized and now unacceptable use of live calls in stalking hunting for small migratory birds ".
Continuing, Zanoni said satisfied, "I am happy that my amendment was passed by a large majority, I had to work a little to make my colleagues on the committee understand what it was all about because apparently in the rest of Europe this wickedness is unknown and Italy is the last of the EU countries to make one of this barbaric practice. Now I will follow the process of this report which will have to be voted on by the AGRI - Agriculture Commission and later by the European Parliament ”.