A text that causes discussion
In recent days, the day after its publication, the President of Federcaccia Lazio Aldo Pompetti wrote to the regional offices regarding some observations on the hunting calendar for next season and the PFR. Below is the text. Federcaccia Lazio has seen the new Regional hunting calendar published by the Lazio Region. Appreciation is expressed for the opening and closing dates of the hunting season, which reflect the periods of Law 157/92 for most of the species, and which are correctly justified in the departure from the opinion of ISPRA. However, we would like to point out some inconsistencies and penalties that this Federation had already highlighted in past years, but which have remained unapplied again this year with the change of regional political direction. Below are the points that are requested to be reviewed.
Hunting calendar
Turtle dove hunting: the system adopted by the Lazio Region cannot be considered satisfactory because it leads to the assignment of 1 turtle dove per hunter and entrusts the management of the withdrawal plan to the ATCs. It is considered correct that a regional system for monitoring levies be adopted, with an application for smartphones, SMS sending or a dedicated web page, in which hunters interested in turtle dove hunting must register, after all all the Italian regions have implemented this method, while none has made a "pre-assignment" of garments by the ATC. Federcaccia offers its collaboration in this sense, also through the agreement with XCaccia. In this way, passionate hunters of the species can take advantage of the 5-head game bag, permitted by the National Management Plan and hunting would be stopped when the regional limit of 5.534 heads is reached. It should be noted that this system proved effective in the neighboring regions of Tuscany and Umbria last season.
Pochard hunting: also for this species it is considered preferable to adopt a regional system as described for the dove. In fact, it may happen that a hunter declares his interest in the species, but then cannot hunt, in this way the pre-assigned items will not be available to other hunters, with obvious penalization of the most passionate.
Cancellation of huntable species: for many years the Lazio Region has excluded the black-bellied and tufted species from hunting. A change in this penalizing approach is requested, pointing out that neither of the two species is in a condition of demographic suffering and it is not correct to totally exclude a species from hunting, when hunting regulations are possible with some restrictions but not absolute bans.
Limitation of daily and seasonal sampling: the limits of animals that can be slaughtered in the Lazio Region are more restrictive than those of nearby regions (e.g. Tuscany and Umbria) and go beyond the ISPRA opinion by penalizing Lazio hunters. Some examples are the limit of wood pigeons of 10 heads, the seasonal limit of hares, pheasants and the seasonal limits for the species of snipe, whisk, gadwall, garganey and shoveler which are not even required by ISPRA.
Game plan for hunting
As known, the Regional Wildlife and Hunting Plan stopped in 1998 and this has prevented for many years the implementation of the wildlife-hunting planning and the implementation of programming choices updated to the new situations of the fauna and the territory of the Lazio Region. Last year a Regional Faunistic Plan was proposed that this Federation did not agree with because it did not reflect the territorial realities that have transformed over the decades, for example:
the hazelnut monocultures have invaded the territory and for their survival against the ungulates they are duly fenced off, subtracting territory useful for hunting;
expanding photovoltaic systems and other new settlement projects
the expansion of parks-oases and protected areas in general.
The above has considerably reduced the territory useful for hunting, for example one can verify the municipalities of the Province of Viterbo such as Villa San Giovanni in Tuscia which has only a few hectares available for hunting, as well as the neighboring municipalities up to Nepi.
These municipalities are also intended to collect Roman hunters who, due to lack of territory, must necessarily pour in, as also required by Law 450 in the neighboring municipalities.
In the few huntable areas in the Rome area, this Federation had to create an App specifically for hunters, which signals the approach to areas intended for the foreclosure of hunting - Parks - ZRC - and other prohibitions in order to avoid inconveniences.
The proposed Faunistic Plan, by virtue of the decrease in the number of hunters and automatically the increase in the hectares of land available per capita, had led to the creation of new restricted zones such as ZRC-Oasis, whose tabulation is the responsibility of the falling ATCs with expenses that weigh heavily on the budget of the ATCs themselves.
Precisely for economic and savings reasons, it would be advisable to evaluate the single ATC in some provinces of Lazio.
The courses for the Volunteer Hunting Guards of the associations have no longer been implemented. It would also be advisable to identify new figures of Guards who could alternatively carry out the activities carried out by the Provincial Police where there is a shortage or a number that does not correspond to the needs of the ATCs to carry out all the functions required by law.
FIDC's point of view
This Federation has repeatedly expressed a negative opinion on the electronic card in full application. This digitized form would penalize hunters who do not have a smartphone and those who do not have the technical skills to use it. The proposals have been to include in the new hunting exams the IT part for future hunters - the voluntary request for those who are skilled in the use of this form.
The Lazio Region has been penalized by the failure to collect seasonal data on the samplings declared in the hunting cards which have therefore not been made available in recent years. The proposals of Federcaccia Lazio were various: reading using the electronic pen, the use of citizens' income recipients for the purpose of collecting and reading data, economic incentives to the Municipalities and Bodies responsible for issuing and collecting badges in order to transmit the aforementioned data.
Last year the Lazio Region only partially implemented the new laws and provisions on the CAP which is totally financed by the European Union for the purpose of improving the environment-habitat- and territory, this goes to the detriment of the biodiversity of the Lazio territory and the correct management of the wildlife and hunting.
The undersigned Federation kindly requests a meeting to examine the issues described above with the necessary depth.