On June 25th and 27th, the Sicily region enabled new hunters to monitor and al experimental hunting sampling of Italic hare in Sicily. With these hunters it will therefore be possible to extend the three-year experimental project "Towards the sustainable hunting of the Italian hare in Sicily" to other ATCs, promoted by FIdC Study Center - Permanent Fauna Office -, in collaboration with the Laboratory of Applied Zoology of the University of Palermo (Prof. Mario Lo Valvo) and the Faunal-Hunting Departments competent for the territory.
It should be remembered that the experimental collection of the Italic hare had already become a reality in the last hunting year in some "districts" of the ATC ME1, PA2 and AG1. The initiative is particularly important since it has allowed the concrete launch of the so-called “programmed hunt” based on Law no. 157 / '92, also on a typical species of small sedentary game already subject to disputes in Sicily. In this way, a double wall was broken, built, in good faith, on the one hand by those who considered a model of "sustainable hunting" to be inapplicable in Sicily and, on the other, by those who intended defend the "traditional hunting" as such (no longer applicable for continuous appeals to the Regional Administrative Court). The experience completed in 2017, thanks to the sensitivity of willing hunters open to innovation, has shown that technically correct hunting is possible in Sicily.
The Sicilian Region had a great sensitivity towards this initiative, immediately grasping the positive and innovative aspects of the proposal, susceptible to important repercussions on the social level and on the future management strategies of the Sicilian fauna. The positive experience will also continue on other territories of the island and, in the future, it will be able to expand to Rock partridge of Sicily, which for years has not been hunted for similar reasons. Finally, despite having been promoted by the Regional Council of the FIdC Sicily chaired by Giuseppe La Russa, this project makes the technical-scientific skills of the Federcaccia available to the benefit of all Sicilian hunters regardless of the Association to which they belong.