Hunting in Italy: Beyond sterile criticisms, a painting on hunting in Italy, an ancient art practiced by fewer and fewer professional hunters.
Hunting in Italy is regulated by the law of 11 February 1992, n. 157, hunting is an ancient art, rich in charm and tradition, capable of binding man to the environment in an indissoluble way. Wildlife is defined as an unavailable heritage of the State and every hunter is obliged to follow the rules and hunting calendars that hope to regulate its collection., not always, it must be said, hitting the mark.
Law 157/92 in its second article establishes which wildlife needs protection and which species are protected making a difference between mammals, among which the protected specimens are wolf, golden jackal, bear, marten, skunk, otter, wild cat, lynx, monk seal, all species of cetaceans, the Sardinian deer and the Abruzzo chamois and between birds. Those protected are really many starting from the minor shag to the wild swan, the flamingo and the stork.
Said this to devote oneself to hunting in Italy it is essential to be in possession of a rifle port license for hunting use. The documents for obtaining this license are different:
• certificate of suitability for the handling of weapons which must be issued by a section of the National Target Shooting;
• anamnestic certificate proving the psycho-physical fitness that must be issued either by the family doctor or by the competent ASL;
• finally, passing the exam that will enable you to practice hunting. It takes place in written and oral form and focuses on five subjects: zoology, legislation, weapons, ballistics, agriculture and of course first aid.
The hunter who has obtained the rifle port license for hunting use will be able to carry out different types of hunting: the roaming one in the Alps area (with relative authorization), hunting from fixed stalking, and all the forms allowed by law 157/92 including the roaming hunting for migratory and sedentary avifauna, hunting from temporary stalking, hunting for hare and fox.
If, on the other hand, you want to practice wild boar hunting (in some regions) or selection hunting, you must have passed a specific exam. Exercised on pastoral agro-forestry territories, hunting methods and criteria are always planned by the Regions which must allocate 20 - 30% of the territory in question to wildlife protection.
Each region also determines the seasonal calendar, in which all the dates on which the opening and closing of the hunt are scheduled are indicated.
Hunting in Italy: If on a theoretical level everything works perfectly on a practical level, the regulations in force, obsolete and to be revised, are deeply undermining the very essence of hunting in Italy.
Unlike what we read, the progressive decrease of young people interested in hunting is not the reason that is pushing more and more practitioners to abandon it, rather, costs and regulations.
To begin with, the advancement of the anthropization of the territory, with the relative overbuilding reduces, year after year, the agro-forestry pastoral territory dedicated to hunting, but it is above all the annual costs related to the hunting license that decrease the number of hunters: it is estimated that each hunter (with variations from region to region) must pay a minimum of 300 to a maximum of 500 euros per year for his license.
This condition of things has caused a truly frightening decrease in practitioners: it has gone from 1.701.853 practitioners in 1980 to 751.876 in 2007, and the data of the last 4 years only validate the phenomenon.
A real shame, especially when you count that hunting is an almost necessary activity for the control of numerous herbivorous species which, given their numerical consistency, jeopardize the survival of agricultural activity in various Italian locations. The offending species are certainly wild boar, fallow deer, mouflon, roe deer, red deer, chamois, and ibex, for which selective killing, planned and planned by zoologists, is essential.
All the negative aspects of hunting, which no hunter worthy of the name forgets, could instead be easily limited with a renewal of law 157/92, which would now need to be revisited..
With the right regulations, the problem related to the hunting of migratory birds could be solved, whose protection is difficult, but also the negative impact that is estimated to have the dispersion of lead on the ground and the introduction of alien species harmful to native ones in restocking phase.
in short The time has come for the Regions and the State to put not only their hearts, but also their heads, into the regulation of hunting.