A disruptive pronunciation
From memory, we do not recall in the last twenty years another ruling on hunting by a TAR as disruptive as the sentence of section IV of the TAR Lombardia of Milan (president Gabriele Nunziata, drafting councilor Antonio De Vita) n. 1516 published on May 2nd, with which in acceptance of the appeal of the lac (incidentally lowercase) the Regional Council will have to provide for an immediate ban on hunting on 475 mountain passes affected by the migration routes of avifauna in the regional territory. In essence, in a number of crossings - or, better said, of sites now legally considered as such - far higher than the sum of all the crossings already formally established in the entire Peninsula. A situation that only a few, incurable realists had foreseen and which will necessarily need to be permanently remedied, in the non-exclusive interest, however important, of the Lombard hunters alone.
The game is not over
The risk is in fact the opening of cascading scenarios that could also involve other Regions with territories that are at least partly mountainous. Everyone expects the Lombardy Region to appeal to the Council of State against this sentence, asking for its suspension, a sort of due act, also because the matter is not actually closed. Certainly, however, the administrative dispute, however and when it ends, will not be able to heal the fundamental wound, that is, an antiquated law, that of art. 21, paragraph 3 of 157, which prohibits hunting (meaning all, in any form) for a distance of 1000 meters from the mountain passes affected by the migration routes of avifauna. Nowadays, such a general and generalized provision no longer has any reason to exist: even if we assume that 33 years ago there was such a reason (rereading the documents of the XIII Environment Commission of the Senate at the time, available on the internet, one can easily identify its political paternity, which immediately reveals why the rule is so draconian).
Health issues
Today, in addition to being unjustifiably extremist against hunting, it has many and heavy negative impacts. For example, we all know how much the presence and distribution of wild species and related forms of hunting have changed in our country: just think of the now ubiquitous selective hunting of ungulates and the rooting of collective wild boar hunting even in the North and South from its original cradle in Central Italy. Hunts that will suffer the stop like all the others, whether waiting or wandering and whatever species they target. And let's keep quiet for the sake of our country about the health problems and damage to agricultural and forestry production, which can no longer be addressed even by using hunting, since only wildlife control can be implemented at the passes, with all the organizational and operational limitations that distinguish it. Reading the sentence is, as always, fundamental to trying to understand it. For example, nowhere is there a definition of “migration route”, while there are multiple references to the definition of “pass”, taken moreover from the report of the commissioner ad acta Piero Genovesi. This is not a detail, since the state law certainly provides for the prohibition of hunting within 1000 meters of the passes, but subordinates it to the condition that they are “affected by the migration routes of the avifauna”.
The migration routes
Well, nowhere is there a definition of what a migration route is: how is it established? Is it where birds pass through – and of which species – both in autumn and in spring? Is it enough that they pass through only in one of the two seasons of their annual movements? And how many must pass through? Are there minimum or average figures or percentages to take as a reference, and are they the same or different between species? On the basis of which historical series can one decide? Are the observations made over time standardized or heterogeneous? Must a route have a predetermined minimum/maximum width to be defined as such? It would take time and in-depth scientific investigations, in the absence of which (because the TAR does not allow time) every mountain ridge seems to become a potential pass affected by migratory routes, a very dangerous approach since the hunting ban would extend (in fact, in Lombardy, this is what happened) to areas of tens of thousands of hectares and not to specific and well-localized sites. It is paradoxical that the commissioner ad acta, whose technical-scientific competence cannot be questioned, did not provide an exhaustive description of what migratory routes are and that, instead, the TAR took the trouble to "gloss over" this aspect.
The future
Another point, which seems significant to us even if it may go unnoticed: the ruling provides for the possibility, in the future, of modifying in addition or subtraction the list of current crossings, following a scientific study by a qualified body, which however "must take place after consultation with the environmental and trade associations that intend to be involved in the proceedings". Is that all? No. As the TAR recalls in some paragraphs of the ruling, the Constitutional Court with ruling no. 254/2022, also linked to the never-ending story of the Lombard crossings, had established that the TASP to be protected within a radius of 1000 meters from the mountain crossings must be excluded from the minimum and maximum percentages of TASP to be allocated to the protection of wild fauna pursuant to art. 10, paragraph 3 of law 157/92 and the corresponding regional regulations. In fact: “Different (with respect to the TASP to be used for a hunting ban in the Alpine area and in the remaining territory pursuant to art. 10, paragraph 3, law 157/92, ed.) is the need for protection that arises on the mountain passes crossed by the migratory routes of avifauna, which is functional only to guarantee the unharmed passage of migratory species.
A significant impoverishment of the species concerned
From this perspective, the ban set by art. 21, paragraph 3, of law no. 157 of 1992 is considered an absolute hunting ban, which escapes the balance of interests of the wildlife plan and intends to prevent an activity that, if authorized for birds in transit, could transform, due to the concentration of specimens, into a significant impoverishment of the species in question. In other words, the protection of the mountain pass is outside the logic of the composition of interests that wildlife planning is intended for, and its territory imposes an absolute hunting ban due to the natural factor constituted by the objective circumstance of the existence of migratory routes of the avifauna.” The translation? Simply put, the areas taken away from hunting due to the crossings must be added to those taken away from hunting due to the establishment of protection oases, repopulation and capture zones, closed funds, parks and nature reserves, etc. that is, they cannot even partially replace them and the area lost for hunting due to the crossings cannot be “compensated” by proportionally reducing the area already prohibited due to the wildlife-hunting plans.
Alpine and pre-alpine areas
Thus, it does not even matter how much the correspondence of the passes amounts to in terms of hectares measured on the ground. Therefore, when the bowls will be definitively stopped, there will be percentages of TASP with hunting prohibited according to the regional wildlife-hunting planning, consisting of oases, ZRC, parks and the like and, in addition, the percentages with prohibition resulting from the establishment of the passes. At the moment in the Alpine and pre-Alpine areas, as well as the Apennine areas of Oltrepò, Lombardy, the percentages where hunting will be effectively prohibited have therefore shot up to levels never reached in the past. In addition to the damage, here is therefore the blow coming from the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court which, as such, cannot be appealed, as provided for by the Constitution itself. At this point, we conclude with a simple assessment: beyond the need to identify the "real" crossings, that is, where migratory routes actually pass and not a handful of thrushes or hawfinchs, the only viable way to permanently resolve the issue, we believe, is to modify the state law, if not repealing it at least diluting it to avoid a generalized hunting ban. The national legislator should act and do so with the utmost urgency and caution possible, using the most appropriate and solid regulatory instrument available, keeping in mind the obligation of the Birds Directive (not to be ignored), the rulings of the Constitutional Court and the reaction of the usual suspects, who we imagine will go to Brussels to complain, fearing immense destruction of migratory birds by hunters. It is high time, otherwise it will never be time again.
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Hunting in mountain passes threatens many European populations of small passerines that in winter escape the cold of northern Europe to seek refuge in the Mediterranean areas further south of the Alps, where they are decimated by the double-barrelled shotguns of the subalpine hunters of Brescia and Bergamo. Many of these are real criminals because they do not even spare small birds weighing a few grams, they do not know how to recognize the most precious species because they shoot down everything that flies and they also use prohibited electro-acoustic decoys.
It is they who ruin the passion of respectful hunters, not the TAR sentences.