The Councilor for Agriculture of the Lombardy Region, Fabio Rolfi, signed with the vice president of the Province of Brescia, Andrea Ratti, the representatives ofNational Association of Italian Municipalities and the presidents of the bodies concerned, the provincial operational protocol to improve and standardize the containment and eradication of nutria. “It is necessary to coordinate the forces between institutions, trade associations and bodies involved such as parks and reclamation consortia - said Rolfi.
The nutria in Lombardy represents a huge problem, because it causes damage to the agricultural economy, to the embankments of water bodies, in which it builds its dens, and risks contaminating agricultural food products ”. The novelty of the agreement concerns the active involvement of the Park Authorities and the Irrigation Consortia. "Everyone must do their part - exhorted the commissioner -: thanks to this protocol the containment activity of the nutria will not stop at the borders of the protected areas, as has happened so far, but will also continue inside the parks to make operations throughout the territory. An important role also for reclamation consortia: the know-how of the operators in their area of expertise will guarantee concrete results ".
"Lombardy Region has increased resources and, for 2018, has foreseen an investment of 400mila euros for containment and eradication - the Lombardy Agriculture Manager said -. It is not enough and I have already asked the Government for a National Fund on this issue ”. Below is a table of the situation relating to otters in Lombardy with the estimated number of otters and that of otters collected for the year 2017, divided by provinces: Province - estimated nutria - collected nutria in 2017 Bergamo - 22.013 - 1.598 Milan - 43.259 - na Lodi - 104.276 - 13.815 Pavia - 110.845 - 632 Cremona - 120.172 - 24.841 Brescia - 139.324 - 14.950 Mantua - 168.132 - 29.557 Lombardy - 708.021 - 85.393.