With the extraordinary interventions decided by the EU Commission following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, it can also be guaranteed in Puglia the cultivation of over 100 thousand hectares left uncultivated due to insufficient profitability, due to drought but above all due to the attacks of wild boars that devour the crops, causing loss products and investments to farmers. This is what he returns to report Coldiretti Puglia that in a letter to the regional councilor for Agriculture Pentassuglia and to the presidents of the National Parks of Alta Murgia Tarantini and Gargano Pazienza defines "amoral" which, in a moment of serious economic and energy crisis that is indiscriminately affecting all production sectors , with serious repercussions on food and supply security, it is not possible to plan a serious and shared strategy against wild boars and the damage they continue to cause to agricultural structures and crops, as well as road safety.
“We are on the eve of the sowing of legumes and of a cereal campaign that is absolutely uncertain due to drought, the high cost of fuels and fertilizers, cereal prices tend to rise and the institutions in question cannot "afford" to frustrate the work and sacrifices of agricultural entrepreneurs, allowing crops to be destroyed by wild boars or wildlife more generally, thanks to uncertainties, legislative shortcomings, plans and programs that have been waiting for decades to be approved, documentation that lies in the offices and that should be transmitted elsewhere ”, says Savino Muraglia, president of Coldiretti Puglia.
In Puglia after the lockdown for the Covid emergency the situation has become unbearable in the countryside with damages of at least 15 million euros per year to agricultural production but - underlines Coldiretti Puglia - the environmental balance of vast territorial ecosystems in areas of naturalistic value is also compromised with the loss of both animal and vegetable biodiversity. “We will not allow anyone to entrench themselves behind the inefficiencies of the bureaucracy, the lack of personnel, the "smart working" that has been emptying public offices for two years, that is, we will not continue to listen to a "litany" that we know well and that must be interrupted by concrete, timely and useful choices for the community. Cages, manhole covers, traps are no longer enough, provided they are never served.
The only path that we feel we can propose and support is the selection hunting within the areas of the Parks and contiguous areas, for the purpose of numerical containment and the serious and profitable control of wild boars ”, thunders the regional director, Pietro Piccioni. There are many unresolved issues - Coldiretti Puglia reports - to which there is still no answer, from the state of the art of the comparison between Parks and the Puglia Region, to the SEA of the Monitoring and Management Plan of the wild boar species, from the implementation of the council resolution which provided for a computerized regional procedure to allow the owners of the funds to forward the request of control intervention on land "at risk" to the regional regulation for the activity of selection hunting, up to the regional register of hunters authorized for selection hunting, of which there is still no trace. Herds of wild boars - underlines the regional Coldiretti - are moving ever closer to homes and schools, up to the parks where children play, destroy crops, attack animals, besiege stables, cause road accidents with deaths and injuries and scratch around in the rubbish with dangers for the health and safety of people.
Without forgetting the danger of the spread of diseases highlighted by the same Surveillance and prevention plan for 2021 published by the Ministry of Health which reiterates that wild boars have a fundamental responsibility for the spread of African Swine Fever (Psa) and therefore one of the necessary measures in Italy is the numerical management of the population of these animals. Action therefore according to the Plan - concludes Coldiretti Puglia - it must be addressed to both numerical and spatial reduction through hunting activities, the control actions of law 157/92 article 19 and programmable actions in the network of protected areas.