Night patrols against wild boars: tired of the devastation that has continued unabated since the beginning of April, the farmers of Confagricoltura Padua they decided to organize a night surveillance service to check over one hundred hectares of fields in the Vallette area, in Ospedaletto Euganeo. Promoter of the initiative is Christian Rossi, one of the agricultural entrepreneurs most damaged by raids by ungulates. “After the devastation suffered at the first sowing of corn and not being able to change crops for the specific processes made on the ground with selective weeding, it was necessary to proceed with the re-sowing - he says -.
But doing it without finding some new defense system would have been useless, because the animals would have arrived immediately to raid. So I got the idea of contacting a specialized company that carried out the surveillance service, with the aim of obtaining a deterrent effect and disturbance of the nocturnal activity of wild boars ". The project found immediate approval. “I proposed the service to other farmers neighboring my countryside and, once the initiative was approved, the patrol service began - he explains -. Every evening a person in charge, from dusk to dawn, rides through the countryside with a vehicle equipped with a very powerful lighthouse.. He always follows different paths, to better protect the area entrusted to him, which is about one hundred hectares. At each turn, identify a number of heads that varies between 3 and 15 animals, even several times in the same night.
Obviously, the service is subject to a fee and the costs incurred are completely at our expense ". Farmers are forced to try all possible systems for limit the damage, which thanks to the patrol service, on the re-seeded part, are so far contained. “Despite this momentary relief, the road to harvest is only at the beginning - warns Rossi - e with such a large number of animals around for the fields I foresee that we will still suffer a lot of damage. We all agree that next year, given the current conditions, it will be impossible to plan a production of corn in that whole area, creating problems for crop rotation, as well as balance sheet of our companies. We hope that the competent bodies will listen to us and find a way to solve the problem. We are ready to lend our help "(HANDLE).