They are sighted now a bit everywhere, even in the central streets of small towns and big cities. They destroy agricultural crops and provoke road accidents for 100 million euros in damages per year, according to Coldiretti. And this summer the dead often escaped us. An elderly man was in Cefalù killed from a wild boar while trying to protect his dog.
In L'Aquila, a forty-year-old lost his life impacting with his Smart against a wild boar that got off the highway. The same tragic fate then befell a Tuscan man: an "ungulate" weighing more than a hundred kilos was suddenly catapulted on the street, and the collision, for the man passing by in the car, was fatal. Wild boars, mammals similar to pigs, frighten Italy and multiply at the speed of light. Currently there are more than a million. A century ago they were almost extinct, but then they were reintroduced en masse to make the shotguns happy. Many wild boars come from abroad and their weight can be close to two quintals. Their reproductive capacity is incredible: they can give birth to up to twenty puppies a year.
Even in Veneto the question is problematic: in the Padua area there are over two thousand "redundant" wild boars, while in the province of Verona the experimental hunting regime for wild boar hunting was extended for the entire 2015/2016 season. The Coldiretti farmers ofEmilia Romagna instead, they are calling for a reform that guarantees the active presence of farms in the fight against ungulates and other wild animals. The statements of the mayor of Ancona cause a lot of discussion Valeria Mancinelli (About 30 wild boars from the Marches in total): “The damage caused by wild boars amounts to several million euros, and we are still wondering what to do? The flamethrower, that's what it takes, they must be exterminated. While there will surely be some stupid environmentalists protesting, we cannot afford to do nothing. If we can't find a way to exterminate them, we have to invent it, we would be criminals to leave the situation as it is ”.
It is "wild boar alert" also in Campania, in Lazio (especially in Ciociaria), in Sicily and Abruzzo, where the collective wild boar hunt will begin on 3 October: the Abruzzo councilor for agriculture asked the minister Maurizio Martina the activation of a technical table for the revision of the regulatory instruments ("obsolete") in force on the management of wild boars. Without forgetting the thriving black market for wild boar meat: more than half of the “excess” wild boars are slaughtered and illegally traded.
by Maurizio Di Fazio
Il Fatto Quotidiano.it