Selection hunt for deer and roe deer in Trentino Alto Adige, a shocking proposal from the Wildlife Committee: culling the puppies first, then the mothers.
The Trentino Faunal Committee, regarding the selection hunt for deer and roe deer, inserts a specification in the legislative proposal that gives rise to the controversy between environmentalists and hunters: it is advisable to kill first the puppies and then the mothers to prevent the little ones from dying anyway. This is the content of the proposal of “2013/2014 technical prescriptions for hunting” in Trentino, envisaged in point 12.10, adopted by the Faunal Committee in the session of last 12 February and now awaiting approval.
The underlying reason for this particular specification contained in the proposed legislation would be to prevent young deer or roe may suffer from the death of their mothers that, if they were killed first, they would leave them without guidance and without nourishment if they are still breastfeeding. The proposal that "in deer hunting and the roe deer can also be taken by the females accompanied by the young and in these cases the young is killed first "dictated in the content of the legislation in question, apparently it came from the environmentalists of the Fauna Committee.
For Adriano Pellegrini, representative of Pan-Eppaa, Provincial Animal Protection Authority, this is a necessary specification and he stated, “as a convinced animal rights activist, it was I who asked for the paragraph to be inserted. And Nigra, from WWF, voted with me. This is an indication that was already there regarding the Hunting Calendar of several years ago and has since been removed. But I think it's right there, in black and white, because it is a lot of practice to do so anyway and then, as a convinced environmentalist, I repeat, if I really have to, I prefer to see a puppy die rather than the mother, with a puppy left alone and destined to die of starvation, without a guide ".
The hunters opposed the specification as it would hide the umpteenth attempt by the animal rights activists, in this case the proponents of the amendment, to hinder the hunting activity as much as possible; in fact, the president of the Trentino Hunters Association, Gianpaolo Sassudelli, thinks it is a real ambush and states, “What the prescription says, inserted in writing for the first time, has always been a good rule of behavior on the part of hunters. Killing the mother first and leaving the puppy means delivering him to certain death anyway. And for the species a mother is more precious than a puppy ”.
Continuing Sassudelli added, "This will lead to a lot of problems because it will give rise to numerous litigation. If a puppy is killed and the mother is spared during the nursing period, then a hunter will be able to freely kill that female, because there are no puppies. But in the event of controls, he will have killed a female during breastfeeding, and will be subject to a penalty ”.
11 March 2013