Intervention within 24 hours of the Provincial Police for the killing; direct and immediate intervention of owners and tenants of the funds, but only if equipped with firearms under the coordination of the Provincial Police; catching through traps or fences managed directly by farmers and ATC, the territorial hunting areas. These are some of the innovations approved by the Regional Council which concern the control interventions pursuant to article 37 (Lr.3 of 12 January 1994) for protect agriculture from damage by ungulates, introduced, on a proposal by the councilor for agri-food Stefania Saccardi, with the modification of resolution 310 of 2016.
"Tuscan farmers - says Saccardi - are paying a very high price for the crisis caused by the pandemic and in this situation the impact of ever more numerous herds of wild boars on crops it has assumed unsustainable dimensions. It is necessary to give a concrete and balanced response to the world of agricultural work, which with courage and passion carry on their activities: it is not possible to see the fruit of work destroyed, be it vineyards, fields sown with cereals or orchards. Now - he continues - together with the indispensable preventive actions, owners and tenants of agricultural funds have new and more effective tools at their disposal in the context of control activities to protect their crops from attacks by ungulates ”.
Through a simple system, and with the immediate coordination of the provincial police, farmers with a single weapon permit will therefore be able to intervene directly, within their own farm, to kill ungulates that threaten crops. Just as they will be able to directly set up cages or fences to make catches. Another important change, which concerns the majority of farmers, is the reduction from 36 to 24 hours of the maximum intervention time under control for the provincial police, so as to make this activity more effective and give greater protection to agriculture.
With this modification of the, the Tuscany Region adapts itself to the normative dictate of the law 157 of 1992 which provides for the possibility of using the owners or tenants of the funds, in possession of a firearm license, in the control activities. The standard will remain valid for two years at the end of which the point will be made to evaluate the trend and based on the results, confirm or recalibrate the content. During 2020, again due to covid-19, ordinary hunting has come to a halt. From the first data in the possession of the Region, the number of ungulates is increasing and the risk of serious damage to agriculture is higher every day. In 2020, about 14 thousand fewer wild boars were killed in Tuscany than in 2019 and over 20 thousand fewer than in 2018. The control activity in 2020 involved less than 13 percent of the culled animals.