Roma Nature: "A thousand wild boars in the capital, another 12 thousand in the parks of Lazio"

Containment plans have begun in the reserves of Decima and Marcigliana, where it is possible to act with more safety.

June 22 2021

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A real emergency »does not hesitate to define it this way Maurice Gubbiotti, the president of Roma Natura. The wild boars, in fact, have reached the incredible figure of about 12 thousand in parks of Lazio, and, according to the calculations of the wildlife guards, there are over a thousand in Rome. To the point that the images of these animals searching for food in the streets of the city, especially in the north, they are more and more frequent and almost daily. And it is also difficult to quota or remove them: with all due respect to the animal rights activists, "the containment plans have started anyway," says the president of Rome Nature, “But with great difficulty.

By force of things we had to choose the path of capturing animals with cages and fences, and their transfer to the meat processing industries (thus becoming hams, salamis or sausages). But from the point of view of animal welfare it is always better than giving them to hunting wildlife reserves, where they would then end up being hunted or injured by hunters ». Containment plans have begun in the reserves of Decima and Marcigliana, where it is possible to act more confidently. But in a year no more than three hundred, maximum four hundred, the animals captured and brought to the food industries. "Other plans are starting or have left - adds Gubbiotti - as in the Insugherata park in northern Rome, where, however, we encounter many difficulties.

Firstly because it is a densely built and populated area, therefore the positioning of the nets or cages poses problems; second, because we often find them broken, and we also wondered if they are animal rights activists ». Yet right here, between the park of Monte Mario, where you have to be careful when walking for the ease of meeting them and the northern area the problem is more felt for the high number of wild animals that feast around the bins. And if Gubbiotti does not hesitate to point out the first culprit in the wrong hunting policies of the past decades "Which have extinguished the" Maremma ", the smallest and least prolific native species, replaced for repopulation, by these, originating in eastern countries, heavy and stout, with females going into heat twice a year, and they do 10-15 wild boars at a time. So now the problem is very serious ».

According to the expert, "they put biodiversity at risk, cause damage to agriculture, for hundreds of thousands of euros and go into inhabited neighborhoods". In Lazio they arrive from the north of Tuscany through the corridor of Veio, and "one of the strongest elements to remove them would be if the Municipality cleaned the streets and emptied the bins - observes Gubbiotti - because the only real reason why wild animals leave their natural habitat is to search for food