Regarding the debate on the wild boar emergency and on the possible responsibility of the Province and the Territorial Area of Hunting La Spezia spoke Antonio Bonanini, director of the La Spezia ATC who harshly attacked the work of the Park in this regard, “As citizens, hunters and residents know, the containment" actions "of the boar adopted by the Park have always been impromptu, inadequate and contradictory, determining to aggravate the problem rather than to solve it ".
"Suffice it to say, - Bonanini continued - as can easily be deduced from the attached photographs, which can be found by every citizen who goes there, that the fence that cost taxpayers so much, including La Spezia, and which should have prevented access to the Park to wild boars, it lies in many cases abandoned for years in the woods and large areas of land are completely accessible to animals ".
"For example, - explained the president of the ATC - a passage of about 300 meters has been opened, from the" monorail "to the sea, which for years has allowed wild boars to reach Schiara freely, leaving the females to reproduce directly inside the Park. Therefore, a population of wild boars born and raised within the Park has been established and will never come out of it, exponentially increasing the number of specimens, which, as is known, have a high fertility rate. Moreover, when the fence is installed, it is positioned and made operational in a completely unsuitable way and in contrast with the indications of the ISPRA and also, paradoxically, with those previously formulated by the Park itself in the "Boar Management Plan 2013 / 14 ", which, even if temporally exceeded, certainly cannot be overcome from the point of view of the correct management of the phenomenon".
Continuing continues Bonanini explains, “A similar fate - as shown in the photographs - has touched many“ traps ”, also bought with taxpayers' money, which remained non-operational and maintenance-free. It is therefore difficult for the number of wild boars within the Park to be reduced, and the number of damage to crops and laboriously carried out by residents to be reduced, when the animals can enter freely, reproduce in abundance and then run around. in a huge area ".
The ATC president then adds, “In terms of the killing of supernumerary animals, things are certainly not going any better. The selecontroller hunters - chosen directly by the Park - who should oppose that exponential increase in wild boars, are in very small numbers and have a high average age, which does not reconcile with inaccessible and tiring territories for anyone, taking into account that very often the animals have arrived and are stationed almost at sea (and for an operator, elderly or not, it is certainly not easy to travel up and down the sea several times and vice versa) ".
"It is therefore in a pretext and irrelevant way - said Bonanini - that the President of the Park indicated as the cause of the problem of wild boars in the Park the failure to complete the killing in the territory outside the Park in the past hunting season, both because it is not true and because, as mentioned, the causes are quite different. With regard to the alleged non-completion, it is very easy to remind the President that the contingent of wild boars to be killed in the previous season (in the territory, it is repeated, outside the Park) was 3.000 heads and not 4.000 and that therefore the indicated quota has been realized. ".
Bonanini then added, "Daily, moreover, was the containment and control activity - always external to the Park - organized and arranged by the Area, appointed by the Province, which led to the creation, from February to today, more than 400 interventions and the killing of about 200 wild boars. Many other actions, therefore, would be useful, compared to those indicated by the president of the Park, to address and solve the problem of wild boars within the Cinque Terre Park, which, in the absence of these, will worsen more and more ".
In this regard, - Bonanini declared - the Territorial Hunting Area has always made itself available, obviously after agreement with the competent Administrations and Bodies, to make available its ten-year technical heritage of knowledge of the phenomenon, where necessary also in operative way with the help of assistant hunters and selecontrollers with adequate training and experience to intervene in difficult situations ".
It is therefore regrettable - Bonanini concluded - that this heritage has always been set aside by the Park and its bodies in all respects, consultative, technical and operational. It is not surprising, however, that the president, evidently engaged in more "urgent" matters, did not even realize that the competence on wildlife has in the meantime passed from the Province to the Region ".
Vittorio Alessandro, president of the Cinque Terre National Park, immediately replied, “Mr. Bonanini seems to us a man of rough frankness and, as we have seen, of few words. So we tell him with equal frankness, if he had not yet understood it, that we do not like the situation of wild boars in the Cinque Terre either (who knows how this non-indigenous species of pig, so prolific and harmful, will have arrived here). We do not like having to face it in such a difficult territory, we do not like that the higher price is faced by farmers, but we do not accept unfounded criticisms ".
“He publishes, for example, - explained Alessandro - the photo of nets left available for further fences than those already planned and built by the Park. Among these there are not the 300 meters of Schiara from the monorail to the sea, because - Bonanini knows very well - they are a very steep stretch of coast with steep cliffs and landslide areas, where the laying of a fence would be a challenge. In the area of photography, however, the nets have been positioned, and with excellent results ”.
The president of the park then said, “Mr. Bonanini then puts his hand to the numbers, and then it is only right that he also offers us some clarifications on those data. In the 2013 - 2014 hunting season, a target of 88 thousand animals to be killed was assigned to the Hunting Territorial Area (about 4 thousand hectares), instead only 2.259 were killed. In the following hunting season, unexpectedly, the target of wild boars to be killed, rather than increase (given the missed result of the previous season), was raised to 3, not even that achieved. In the current year, Bonanini himself says, outside the Park (I repeat, almost ninety thousand hectares) 200 wild boars have been killed, but in the 3.872 hectares of the Park about 70 have already been eliminated. Let's try to make a proportion of efficiency? I leave the easy calculation to my kind interlocutor ".
“There is one thing, however, - Alessandro asked himself, concluding - that I still do not understand: the reason why the Director of the La Spezia Hunting Territorial Area has opened an extravagant hunting season for the National Park. Perhaps because he has no more important things to think about - as he says, with delicate irony, to me. Or he has an idea that he does not confess: we are anxiously waiting for him to declare it, so that we can all understand more ”.
(September 25, 2015)
Source: Gazzetta della Spezia - Cinque Terre National Park