Wild boar hunting: In Basilicata there is a wild boar alarm; the animals under the protection of the Park Authority rage through the countryside, penetrating into the cultivated fields and causing considerable damage to the agriculture of the Region.
In fact, in the Pollino Park the animals, protected within the Park, have reproduced exponentially and have come closer and closer to the cultivated areas, causing more and more damage to crops with major repercussions for local agriculture.
Despite the gravity of a situation that is gradually worsening, the institutions have not yet put in place any measures to protect farmers and their business, but on the contrary they are very attentive to the protection of wild boars; the farmers themselves are forced to suffer damage without the possibility of defending their crops in order not to incur heavy penalties.
The complaint is by the writer Andrea Di Consoli on the pages of Il Quotidiano della Basilicata; In fact, the Park Authority, in order to cope with the amount of controversy, has set up an experimental plan for the selective harvesting of wild boars for which 370 operators have been selected. Nevertheless, the results were irrelevant for the solution of the problem as the hunt was carried out with the stalking technique: the hunter hides and waits for the animal to pass.
It is the opinion of the most expert people in this field, the hunters, that more effective measures should be adopted such as, for example, walking around with the dog; with this hunting technique the animals are found with certainty and at the same time they are removed from the areas to be protected forcing them to move to more distant areas where they cannot cause damage.
Furthermore, according to Di Consoli, the area needs constant monitoring in order to keep the situation under control so as to be able to select the animals to be taken annually both with slaughter as a result of hunting and live with capture devices and then be treated as normal. pigs.
The latter hypothesis - says Di Consoli - would open the field to the marketing of a new DOC product to be exported such as wild boar meat and by-products of the slaughter of this animal; the writer also suggests the brand: “Cinghiale del Pollino”, with the consequent creation of new jobs.
On the question, the hunters declare themselves in favor of serious planning and opposed to any type of speculation and indiscriminate collection; the hunters thus intend to safeguard the wild boar which remains at the center of hunting activities.
The Region is evaluating the issue and in the next few days a specific resolution will be discussed aimed at solving the problem.