Le environmental associations have challenged before the TAR the Sicilian hunting calendar, in view of the opening of the hunt scheduled for Wednesday XNUMXst September. The reason is that the activity of the hunters, however in advance, could further damage an area already devastated by fires and record heat. And precisely against the arsonists, in this case in the oriented reserve of the Saline di Trapani and Paceco, the WWF thunders. «The hunting in Sicily is reopened - they affirm in a joint note Wwf Italia, Legambiente Sicilia, Lipu BirdLife Italia, Lndc Animal Protection and Enpa - despite the intense drought season and the dramatic and catastrophic wave of fires, still ongoing, which are devastating the area.
But the hunting calendar issued by the Councilor for Agriculture, Tony Scylla, has even brought forward the opening date by a month and has also provided for the hunting of wild turtledove, a species at risk at European level and in a precarious state of conservation, which the Ministry of Ecological Transition and theIspra (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) had repeatedly asked the Region to exclude from the list of huntable species ». Italy, they then explain, represents an important step area in the migration of the turtle dove between Europe and Africa. In recent weeks, the environmental and animal welfare associations had sent two warnings, a technical-scientific document and numerous appeals to the President of the Region, Nello Musumeci, to ask him to revoke the Calendar.
«Already in previous hunting seasons - the environmentalists underline - the TAR and the Council of Justice administered heavily censored the Sicilian hunting calendars, deeming them illegitimate and suspending hunting as a precaution. Also this year, therefore, the environmental and animal welfare associations are turning to the judiciary with confidence, to prevent forcing and violations of the law and to defend, once again, wild animals which - they recall - constitute "unavailable assets of the State" and not mobile targets for the fun of guns "(The Journal of Sicily).