After reporting a group of otters within the Theodoric Park and the consequent decision of Municipality of Ravenna to proceed with the containment of the animals by killing or taking the specimens, as required by national and regional regulations, the response of various animal welfare associations, opposed to the choice of killing otters. "We strongly ask the Municipality of Ravenna to follow the indications of the European Commission regarding sterilizations, and we hope that it decides to prove itself, following the example of intelligent and virtuous administrations, compassionate towards animals that have no guilt, adopting ecological, effective and bloodless measures "state in a joint letter the associations Animal Liberation, Clama Ravenna, Cruelty Free, Italy Our section Ravenna, Lav Bologna, Lega del cane, Oipa Ravenna .
“Unfortunately, since national law has established that Nutria is a "harmful" animal, thousands of innocent specimens have been exterminated in Italy - explain the animal rights activists -. The Clama association, together with Being Animals, already in 2015 presented a question to the Municipality of Ravenna asking them to stop the order that sentenced them to death ". To clarify, the associations underline that the nutria "is a shy and not aggressive animal, herbivorous and with many natural predators (foxes, dogs, diurnal and nocturnal birds of prey, etc.). The nutria does not carry Leptospirosis ”. In addition to this, animal rights activists argue that “the nutria does not cause damage to infrastructure: on the contrary, it can be useful as it reclaims the swampy environment and controls invasive vegetation in waterways. To date there are no reliable data on the real constitution of the dens, which in any case are never longer than 2/3 meters, and the few scientific articles show conflicting opinions and data.
What is true, however, is that if the reclamation consortia do not carry out good maintenance, in case of bad weather and heavy rainfall the banks weaken, creating spontaneous subsidence ”. “Moreover, it has now been proven the uselessness of killing: Ispra himself declared it impossible to eradicate nutria; now we only talk about containments. The partial removal interventions risk, however, to deconstruct the populations inducing substantial alterations at the demographic level (in favor of younger age groups and females) and creating the conditions for a subsequent increase in the growth capacity of populations through recruitment and immigration from neighboring areas.
These practices also cause considerable disturbance to the local fauna, especially when acting in protected areas or parks. For all these reasons - the associations conclude - we support and support together with Lav Bologna their proposal to the Municipality of Ravenna of a sterilization and release plan in the area of the Parco di Teodorico, already strong from the success of a similar project at Castello d'Argile implemented thanks to a municipal resolution, where in a city park about ten specimens, with a resident population that neither increases nor disperses "(RavennaToday).