To the climatic problems that cause great damage to crops are added those caused by equally harmful animals such as the starling and, in other ways, wild boars and ungulates. Coldiretti, on the side of hunters, calls for the hunting of harmful species.
Early harvest of fifteen days but the balance is anything but rosy for the quality and quantity of the grapes. In many cases the extreme drought of August, not interrupted even after the 15th by sporadic rains, produced a drying of the grapes with consequent increases in sugar concentrations but without the full aromatic ripening of the fruits.
For the winegrowers there was no choice therefore, it was also necessary to harvest to help vineyards that, especially the young ones, were also going into serious suffering. Obviously the total quantity will also be affected by such a difficult season, settling according to forecasts around 43-44 million hectoliters. As if these critical aspects were not enough, from Coldiretti two other serious alarms have arrived linked to further difficulties, such as that of hailstorms, foreseeable especially in the North with the approach of the first depressions, and that of birds, capable of reducing a further 10% wine production.
Apparently it is the heat that has triggered the hunger of the flyers but, as the growers' association explains well, the problem of starlings in Italy goes far beyond the grapes and the 2011 harvest. in fact several millions more of damages caused every year to fruit and olives as well as to vegetables that cannot be used due to the "dirt" left by the waves of thousands of specimens with relative defecations. Farmers complain all over Italy, from Emilia Romagna to Abruzzo where the establishment of a special crisis unit has been requested up to Puglia and Tuscany, and never before are they close to hunters, who have been asking for years European Union the inclusion of the starling, far from reproductive difficulties, in huntable species. The trade associations, among other things, highlight the double damage, on the one hand that caused by transfers and on the other that of missed or very slow compensation.
"Italy is currently the only one among the Mediterranean countries - explains Coldiretti regarding the starling - where hunting of this harmful bird is not allowed, except for exceptions, despite the request submitted to the European Commission, also considering the damage which causes this species to agriculture. The request was also supported by a majority by the National Wildlife Hunting Technical Committee at the beginning of the summer, also on the basis of an Ispra Report on the conservation status of the species in Italy. The damage caused by starlings falls - continues Coldiretti - in the more general problem of the presence of wild animals such as wild boars and ungulates that endanger not only things but also the daily life of people, from the countryside to the cities. Repeated cases of road accidents, farms decimated, thousands of fields with crops destroyed by groups of wild boars led by animals weighing over 150 kilos that reach inside the houses ".
Source: PRIMAPRESS