This time I would put my finger in the eye of those who work for the chemical and hormonal castration of wild boars, to solve the so-called "emergency" determined by their ever-increasing number. As everyone knows, damage to agricultural crops and the continuing risk of road accidents are the direct and costly consequences of the sudden increase in some species. Hunting, animal rights activists say, does not solve the problem, on the contrary it aggravates it. Guess why? "Because through the loss of the synchronization of estrus, it could be considered as a cause of the damage itself." This was stated by an anonymous study by the LAC (Lega Abolizione Caccia). The acronym already says it all, intentions and programs. According to the LAC, according to a Spanish scientist, in a population of wild boars subjected to intense sampling, females go into oestrus as early as the first year of age. This is the cause of the increase in wild boar populations. Not the abandonment of crops and therefore the increase in wooded areas, not the increase in temperature that led to greater food availability, not parks, but hunting. But how? Until yesterday they accused us of destroying wildlife, now they accuse us of increasing it? And all those other scientists, even from Ispra, from the Universities of Perugia, Turin and Viterbo (to mention only the Italians) who have always argued that a good management hunt serves, not to destroy or increase a species object of sampling, but to preserve it, and to improve the situation of other species? So they say bullshit?
Therefore, not hunting in pursuit (which actually increases the number of wild boars), not selective killing in parks on females and young classes (which according to ISPRA is the best method, and I say: just increase it), not electric fences and foraging in the woods, not catches and subsequent releases to other areas, but chemical castration. Il Tirreno spoke about it for the first time, in the edition of Grosseto, on 25 August 2011. The proposal was from the LAV (Lega Antiviviszione), supported by the LAC and with different nuances also by Italia Nostra, collecting a proposal by Giovanna Massei, known to Grosseto for having collaborated with the Maremma Park. Massei says she has successfully experimented with this method in England. But I wonder: where are the wild boars in England? On which species did it act? Pigeons and starlings? So, in short, after this beautiful English experience, it would now be a question of sterilizing the wild boars with hormones placed in the corn baits. Also the Tyrrhenian Sea, on 23 August 2013, informs us that the province of Lucca has started a close relationship with the Maremma Park and the University of Pisa, which are studying the system capable of sterilizing female wild boar. The substance was found. It is now a question of finding containers that only wild boars can open. This was the hope expressed by the councilor.
The Corriere of 1st October of this year announces that the experimentation has already begun in the Maremma park. "The dispenser has been used successfully" explains Enrico Giunta, director of the Park. " It is called Bos (Board Operated System) and it only works on wild boars. In other words, it recognizes the conformation of the muzzle and releases the food where the contraceptive will be inserted in the future ". But I wonder: it will also be opened by males. And what effects will the hormones that have to block the estrus of females have on them? The pill is still missing, which is the first oral drug awaiting the authorizations of the American and Italian health authorities. “Certainly by 2016”, the director of the Maremma Park happily concludes, which if you remember well, was one of the first protected areas to open up to control excess species.
As if that were not enough, other vaccines, based on hormones, such as GonaCon and PZP that sterilize animals, are being studied and tested (but at this point the LAV is silent?) (According to Massei, GonaCon-KLH sterilizes the 92% of animals in the 4-6 years following administration) to be injected with syringes fired from special rifles. Not hunting, therefore, but the animal rights activists will run out of wild boars. End of a problem, perhaps, but also of a resource. In the meantime, however, the animals will continue to live, they will defecate, they will drink, they will be the object of hunting and therefore food for humans and other species. And what will be the undesirable side effects for humans and other wild animals in the environment?
After chemistry has poisoned our countryside to produce more and more, it will now also infect the wild species we feed on and humans as well. We have to react. It would not be bad that some Prosecutor opened a file, that the NAS of the Carabinieri intervened, perhaps following a complaint from the hunting associations that up to now are watching, as always, to intervene perhaps at what has been done. I propose an action class of the people of the hunters before it's too late. The director of the Maremma Park indicates a date: 2016. Massei herself in an article in Gazzetta Ambiente still expresses some perplexity about the contraceptives currently available on the market or those widely tested on animals, none of which possesses ALL the characteristics of a "Ideal contraceptive" from the point of view of the effects on individual animals and the environment. So we still have some time to organize an answer, no longer ideal, but legal or even judicial. I only have the power of ideas. The associations have the strength of numbers and their lawyers. I call you by name: Dall'Olio, Cardia, Veneziano, Castellani, Sparvoli. Thirty years ago UNAVI would have done something.