ENPA asks the Government to cancel the 2012-2013 Hunting Season which is about to open in all Italian regions.
While appreciating the position taken by the Minister of Agricultural Policies, Mario Catania, regarding the postponement of the imminent hunting season due to the great drought and fires that hit Italian woods and countryside, ENPA, the National Animal Protection Authority, considers it " important but not sufficient ".
In fact, according to ENPA, the Government's commitment should be more decisive and therefore asks that it suspend the 2012-2013 Hunting Season, thus "fully and promptly exercising its powers for the full protection of fauna, in compliance with Article 117 of the Constitution. ".
The Animal Protection Authority urges the Government to "take action before the meeting of 5 September announced by the Minister Catania" as "the meeting would not avoid the massacre of pre-openings scheduled for 1 and 2 September".
ENPA's request is therefore to “cancel the 2012-2013 Hunting Season with a decree of the President of the Council of Ministers”; In recent days, the Animal Protection Department remembers having addressed the same request in writing to the Minister of the Environment, Corrado Clini, from whom, however, never received an answer.
The same request was addressed by ENPA to the Regions with the invitation to apply "Article 19 of the national law 157/92 which also gives them the right to prohibit or reduce hunting due to particular environmental, climatic conditions or for other calamities ".
Below is the press release from ENPA:
“The words of the minister from Catania on hunting are important but insufficient. The government cancels pre-openings and hunting season ".
The ENPA considers the position taken by the Minister of Agriculture, Mario Catania, on the postponement of the hunting season due to drought and fires, to be important but still insufficient. In fact, Animal Protection requests that the Government fully and promptly exercise its powers for the full protection of fauna, in compliance with Article 117 of the Constitution, which gives the State exclusive power over the environment, ecosystems and, therefore, of wild animals.
Animal Protection urges the Government to take action before the meeting of 5 September announced by the Minister Catania - the meeting would not avoid the massacre of pre-openings, scheduled for 1 and 2 September -, and asks to cancel the 2012/2013 hunting season with a Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers. In this sense, in recent days, the ENPA had sent a letter to the Minister of the Environment, Corrado Clini, without however receiving a reply.
«We strongly ask the Government for the full application at regional level of the opinion on the drought emergency and on the very serious crisis of the fauna expressed by Ispra, the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research - declares the Enpa -; opinion that the Institute has already sent to all the Regions: these are the minimum uniform criteria of protection provided for by national and European legislation ».
If the government does not act immediately, a real massacre will take place with the pre-openings on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 September. "We are in fact - continues the association - that many animals, in Veneto as in Umbria, in Tuscany as in Campania, exhausted by the heat and fleeing from fires, have gathered around the few remaining pools of water where the hunters are ready to take up post ».
According to the Animal Protection Department, this disaster should push the Regions to assume their responsibilities - as requested by the Minister Catania - and to become less "two-shot-dependent", opening their eyes to the collapse of the territory, devastated by fires and drought. «The Regions - concludes the Enpa - finally apply article 19 of the national law 157/92 which also gives them the right to prohibit or reduce hunting due to particular environmental and climatic conditions or other disasters. Unfortunately, however, we do not yet seem to have picked up positive signs in this sense "(29 August)
The National Animal Protection Authority has warned the president of the Umbria Region, Catiuscia Marini, and the Councilor for the environment and agriculture, Fernanda Cecchini, so that the 2012/2013 hunting season is canceled and the national and European legislation on the subject complied with. for the protection of fauna. This measure is necessary in consideration of the very serious damage suffered by wild animals due to the extraordinary drought that has been going on for months and because of the fires that have devastated large wooded areas in the region.
"Drought and fires, destroying our ecosystems and our countryside, still jeopardize the chances of survival of many wild species that live in the region", explains Paola Madrigali Tintori, Enpa coordinator for Umbria, who continues: "L 'Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (Ispra), the only organization recognized at national and community level by the European Commission, with a document sent to all regions, has ascertained the crisis of natural populations, consequent to the very hard, calling for stringent measures to protect animals, including the provision of severe limitations to hunting ”.
But the destructive effect of even large fires has been added to the drought: in such conditions, shooting becomes unacceptable and unsustainable for the fauna.
There are numerous broods of birds destroyed by serious calamities and equally numerous are the young specimens and the pups of mammals killed by thirst, hunger and fires. This means that the physiological generational change that allows the survival of many species, some of which are particularly rare, has not occurred this year. The surviving animals, forced to flee, were concentrated in a few areas; areas well known to hunters, ready to lurk to carry out real massacres.
"We ask President Marini and Councilor Cecchini, as well as all political forces - adds Animal Protection - to apply the provisions of Italian and European regulations and in particular by law 157/92 which also gives the Regions the right to prohibit o reduce hunting due to particular environmental conditions, climatic conditions or other calamities. Wildlife is an unavailable heritage of the State: according to the provisions of law 157/92, hunting cannot contrast with the need for the conservation of wild animals ».