Wild boar hunting. The rite dela Braccata is the most common boar hunting technique, here's how it works.
THE HUNT IN PAVIA. Almost 700 wild boar drivers divided into 20 teams (16 in the hunting area of Varzi, 4 in that of Casteggio) of about 30 hunters each. About 1.800 animals killed last season in about 700 hunts, two a week for each team from 31st October to XNUMXst December. These are the numbers of wild boar hunting in Oltrepo which, traditionally and by regulation, is practiced in hunted or, to use the more widespread term, in beat.
But how does a joke work? It's a hunting technique "Collective", based on the collaboration between the hunters of the team and the so-called "canettieri" or the handlers of the dogs who have the task of pushing the wild boars towards the hunters to look. Hunting is a form of collective hunting to the point that normally i boars killed are counted "by teams" and not by individual hunter. Each team is composed on average of 20-30 hunters even if the minimum number allowed by the provincial regulation is 15.
An ancient rite, with strict rules. At dawn the foreman writes the names of the participants on a form and deposits the sheet in a box where the hunting guards can check the names of the participants from the beginning to the end of each line. It is always the foreman to attribute the "posts": each hunter (who must wear a red glow-in-the-dark vest to be clearly visible by all participants in the serve) is assigned a position and indicated the shooting angle. Simplifying, you can shoot only in a certain sector so that on the trajectory of the bullets that do not go to target there is no mail and therefore no other hunter.
La beat is called "hunted"Because the dogs push the wild boars to the post office. The beginning and the end of each phase of the joke is communicated to all the participants via radio: the rifle is loaded after the go-ahead from the team leader, it is unloaded when the joke ends.
Il rifle: until a few years ago the vast majority of wild boar drivers used a 12 a smooth barrel (the normal shotgun, for the sake of clarity) dry bullet loaded, a single bullet with a useful range of about 80 meters. Now, however, the most popular weapon is the rifled barrel rifle (usually in 30.06 caliber) which is much more powerful and has a useful shot of several hundred meters. The joke is not the only technique used for the wild boar hunting.
They also exist the “spin” and the selection hunt. Both of these techniques in the province of Pavia can only be practiced in wildlife farms (the so-called reserves) and not in vacant land. In the turn the hunters (usually 3 to 5) have only one dog that follows the track of the boar and makes it "turn" towards the hunters. In selection huntingon the other hand, the hunter waits for the wild boar, usually attracted with food baits, from a roof terrace. For all boar hunting techniques, in any case, it is not enough to have a firearms license and a hunting license: it is necessary to pass a provincial course in which all safety techniques are taught. For the first few bars, then, the neophyte is joined by a tutor.
di Stefano romano
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