New hunting calendar
The new regional hunting calendar is official. Lombardy Region confirms the general opening of the hunting season 2023/2024 to 17 September 2023 and establishes that the closure of the same takes place as required by the regional legislation in force. The very beginning of the next year was and is the focal point of the dispute with ISPRA which we know is of the opposite opinion and on whose statements all the appeals of animal rights associations are based. The Institute writes: "... it reiterates in fact that the general opening of hunting on 17 September for gray partridge, pheasant, red partridge, lark quail, song thrush etc. (substantially all the species of huntable avifauna are listed) is open to criticism, as it produces a disturbance generated in particular due to the practice of hunting in a wandering form with the help of dogs in a still delicate phase of the biological cycle. On the other hand – continues ISPRA – instead the concentration in a single date of the opening of the hunt, in this case the 1st of October, would favor a more effective carrying out of the supervision of the hunting activity. Therefore, the undersigned Institute proposes to provide for a single general opening of programmed hunting for all bird and small game species on a date no earlier than 1 October 2023 with the exception of some species, specified below, the latter only in stalking form (blackbird and jackdaw)".
ISPRA opinion
As we said, the Lombardy regional council has correctly decided not to take into account the Ispra opinion, establishing the opening on 17 September, but giving reasons for its choices. First of all, we read that ISPRA's proposal "is a proposal for which - supports the Lombardy Region - ISPRA does not provide studies or experimental data demonstrating a negative effect on the species mentioned in the event of the opening from the third Sunday of September as much as the opinion lacks references to the territorial reality of Lombardy and the non-huntable species on which the feared disturbance would occur are not mentioned". In essence, the Lombardy Region joins the voice of all those who ask that ISPRA express scientific opinions, accompanied by studies and publications, and not limit itself to churning out clearly anti-hunting ideological opinions. The Region also justifies the timing of the opening by listing the European Key Concepts documents, essentially the studies on the periods of nesting and migration of birds, according to which for many species hunting could be opened even earlier as the nesting cycle is over. So another lean figure of Ispra.
Three fixed days
It is then underlined how our calendar foresees hunting for three fixed days of the week until October 12st and wandering hunting closed at 1 noon, leaving wandering hunting open for the rest of the day only from a temporary stakeout and for migratory purposes only, therefore a further limitation as a precautionary measure. As for the curious statement that if hunting surveillance opens on the third Sunday of September it is unable to carry out its work correctly while it has since 17 October, the Lombardy Region underlines also in this case "that this observation has neither been demonstrated nor is it justified how the surveillance service could benefit from this postponement, considering that from the point of view of the environmental conditions of the territory (state of the vegetation cover, state of the crops, etc.) there are no particular differences between 1 September and XNUMX October ."
No liability
In the first thirty pages of the resolution, the Lombardy Region responded point by point to ISPRA's "proposals", dismantling, sometimes even trivially, what had arrived from the high priests of Italian wildlife conservation. It seems incredible to us that there is no one who is responsible, who controls, who asks for explanations of certain banalities. A politician, a minister, a manager who asks for clarification! Maybe ISPRA hasn't yet noticed that the Minister has changed and that maybe it's better to lock up anti-hunting demagoguery in some closet and go back to doing scientific research, the real one, in the field. Perhaps they would realize the disasters caused by certain unholy choices, made of inputs, see wolves and bears, and plans to harvest ungulates that are always halved and which have today led to the explosion of these species in many areas of our country. In Sodrio, the Provincial Police kills the extra deer in the month of June, but in recent years the requests made by the Alpine districts for killing plans during hunting periods have always been halved. That's not okay. And next week instead we will talk about the supplementary calendar of Brescia which presents some, let's say, gross errors.
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