Double vision
Maybe not everyone knows but Europe – or rather, the EU – has two faces. This is evidently what some extremists of Italian animalism think, who are ready to radically change their opinion on the value of community rules. When the EU takes a stand against hunting and hunters, perhaps for purely bureaucratic and formal reasons – as in the case of starlings – then its directives or its requests for clarification (with the related and inevitable threats of formal notice) are indisputable “evangelical” precepts that every member state, especially the Italian one, must follow blindly and immediately. When, on the other hand, it issues guidelines or unwelcome rules, then it is an unreliable juggernaut that issues instructions exclusively on a “political” basis to please who knows who.
Last clear example
The latest example of this double assessment occurred just yesterday when the “Permanent Committee” of the Bern Convention voted in favor of the EU proposal, dating back to December 2023 – also supported by the Italian government – officially approving the lowering of the wolf’s protection status by moving it from Annex II (“strictly protected” species) to Annex III (“protected” species). This change will come into force on March 7, 2025 and will offer member states the right flexibility in managing local wolf populations. The “camel troops” of animalist ideology immediately lined up against such a decision (first of all, Francesco Romito, vice president of the association “Io non ho paura del lupo”, immediately spoke out, who, in fact, immediately rejected it, judging it a “political decision that has little to do with science”!
Hunting deregulation
Now, while it is true that the downgrading of protection status will certainly not lead to what our animal rights activists like to terroristically call “hunting deregulation”, ordinary citizens are wondering how it is possible to define as “political” and not scientific a decision whose roots are rooted in a reality that is light years away from that present in the Old Continent when the “rigorous protection” of the wolf was ordered, which had almost reached the brink of extinction. Today, things have changed more than evidently. Just to inform or to refresh the memory of those who pretend not to know or not to remember, it is worth underlining that in the EU, in 2023, there were around 21.000 of them, present in all 24 non-island states: in 23 countries there are packs that reproduce and that tend to constantly increase, killing over 65.000 heads of livestock annually.
Wolf data
Below, we report only some data regarding the wolf population in the EU countries where there are really significant variations. In fact, we go from 783 in France, to 1.400 in Germany, to 1.886 in Poland, to over 2.000 in Spain, to about 3.000 in Romania to arrive at over 3.300 in Italy which is the first European nation for number of wolves. This, at least, is the assessment of ISPRA which however has examined only 100.000 km2 instead of the 230.000 of the actual range of the wolf which instead, according to other estimates, would populate our country with about 5.000 specimens! As if that were not enough, it should be remembered that the approaches not only to inhabited centers and domestic and pet animals, but also to human beings, are increasingly numerous and worrying, as recently happened in Liguria with the attack on a child by a wolf. In fact, according to a very recent research, three packs now “besiege” the capital: from Castelporziano to Castel di Guido, up to Fregene and Focene.
Continuous hysterics
The lesson that comes to us from the EU is therefore clear and must be taken with pragmatism and courage, without giving in one millimeter to the hysteria of those who continue to put packs of wolves increasingly out of control before human beings and their legitimate needs for safety and work. On the other hand, if a civilized country like Sweden, with a territory almost double ours and a density of 23 inhabitants/km2 against the 196 inhabitants/km2 of Italy, has decided to reduce the population of wolves to less than 200, there must be a scientific and not "political" reason! (Paolo Sparvoli - president of Libera Caccia).
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