Unusual 'rescue' attempt by the fire brigade this morning at 7,30. A boar swam in the waters of the Darsena a Milan undisturbed, until some passersby noticed him and raised the alarm. The special fire brigade teams promptly intervened on the spot, with divers and the experts of the Speleo Alpinistico Fluviale nucleus. The recovery of the animal, visibly frightened, has become particularly difficult due, the firefighters explained, to its "excellent swimming skills".
At the end of the morning the searches had not yet yielded results: the wild boar hid in one of the canals that are connected to the Darsena, making recovery difficult. “We will be forced to descend into the manholes, with a joint action by our agents of the hunting fish nucleus, the Milanese underground and the fire brigade”, explain from the Metropolitan City of Milan. In the late afternoon, the director of the Civil Protection of Milan, Cristiano Cozzi, explained that after several hours the boar was again seen in the waters, confirming that "traces" of the animal were found during the patrol of the divers who descended, through the hatches of the manholes, into the waters that flow under the city. The vet has prepared the sting with the anesthetic that will be injected with a rifle by a man from the Provincial Police.
Soon the grates that have been positioned along the stretch where the wild animal should be will be open, which, at that point, should come out into the open. The wild boar fell into the canal and then dragged into the dock by the current. But how did the wild animal arrive in Darsena? "The most plausible hypothesis is that he accidentally fell into the waters of the Naviglio at the height of the South Agricultural Park or the Ticino Park - tell the Carabinieri Forestali of Milan -, he will not have found a point of ascent along the route, due to high banks, and for this reason it will have reached the dock by swimming ". After all, the increasingly massive presence of wild boars in urban centers is a hot topic in Italy. And in Milan it is not the first time that some specimens have been recovered from the Naviglio Grande, but the comparison with Rome - where wild animals are now at home - according to experts is inappropriate and premature.
"We are talking about rare and isolated events in the Lombard capital, so we cannot speak of an emergency - explain from the local section of the Carabinieri Forestry Corps - a very strong expansion of the wild boar in Italy it is a fact, just as it is certain that it is an animal that easily adapts to new habitats ”. “And urban areas are of interest to them, because they shrink by far risks of predation”They add. “However, there is no need to worry about a wild boar invasion in Milan - confirm from the Metropolitan City of Milan -.
The ungulates arrive by mistake in the city perimeter following the water channels into which they fall or through the few green corridors ". As soon as it is recovered, like all wild animals, the wild boar will be hospitalized in veterinary facilities and supervised by professionals from the Metropolitan City for any necessary treatment and, if possible, at a later time it will be released in kind. "He will be exhausted from the long journey", conclude the Carabinieri Forestali (La Repubblica).