ISPRA and wild boars
In a recent press release theISPRA briefly illustrated the results of its own survey on the management of wild boar in Italy in the period 2015-2021. Through this survey, the Institute estimated a minimum number of one and a half million animals updated to 2021. The average annual levy was estimated at 300.000 heads, with an increase of 45% in the period considered and an average estimate of damage to crops agricultural of around 17 million euros per year. In the press release in question, further data are disclosed on which the FIdC Studies and Research Office cannot avoid making some brief considerations, postponing a more detailed judgment until the complete Technical Report is published by ISPRA. First of all, doubts are expressed about the evaluation of the data on the size of the populations and the estimate of the damages. In fact, the press release does not adequately illustrate the type of data used (in part derived from the "Regional plans for urgent interventions for the management, control and eradication of African swine fever"), while it is clear that for a species notoriously so difficult to monitor, it is rather risky to indicate any consistency value without emphasizing the uncertainty of the sources used and, therefore, the limited reliability of the estimate itself.
Damage declared by farmers
A similar problem concerns the assessment of damage to agricultural crops, as it is not clear from the press release whether it is only a matter of damage declared by farmers or if it also includes damage not reported (which in certain situations can also be very high). The analyzes conducted by ISPRA also show how the hunt still represents the only form of sampling capable of having a decisive impact from a numerical point of view on wild boar populations. Consequently, the critical assessments made on various other occasions by ISPRA on the subject appear illogical. It is also clear that hunting, limited for the vast majority of cases to the programmed hunting territory managed by the ATC, needs in the future to be accompanied by an increase in other forms of hunting such as selection hunting, endorsement and actions more incisive control systems (e.g. manhole covers).
National protected areas
All this with the aim of having a greater impact on the populations and appropriately regulating the culling (basically) by gender and age, bearing in mind the evident need to significantly reduce the densities in the area. This demanding wild boar containment activity will increasingly have to envisage the direct involvement of the various stakeholders, such as the Wildlife and Agri-Touristic Hunting Companies (where only 6% of the sampling would have taken place in the period under consideration) and the subjects managers of national and regional protected areas established pursuant to Law 394/91, on whose territory there is still no incisive intervention, taking into account the fundamental role played in the diffusion of the wild boar. It is no coincidence that Abruzzo is one of the two regions most affected by the damage, with an estimated 18 million euros in the period, being at the same time the Italian region with the highest surface area where national and regional protected areas exist .
Scientific knowledge
Precisely the latter, where in the period examined, the culling of the suidae represented only 38% of the faunal control activities carried out on the agro-forestry-pastoral territory, will therefore have to play a fundamental role in containing the species. A coordinated management synergy between all protected areas and hunting territories is needed to manage a species that has a potentially great impact on the environment, agricultural production and road safety. A strategy defined on the basis of the most up-to-date scientific knowledge, which makes the most of the available human resources and the capacity for active intervention in the area (Fauna and Agro-Environmental Studies and Research Office FIdC).
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