Over the past three years the population of wild boars in Tuscany it has fallen sharply and the estimates of the damage recorded have more than halved. These are the official results achieved with the interventions implemented in the last 4 years. I am sorry that the figures provided by the president and director of Coldiretti Toscana and the consequent analyzes are of a very different sign: but these are the data that come to us directly from the ATC ". The Regional Councilor for Agriculture, Marco Remaschi, thus replies to the president of Coldiretti Toscana, Fabrizio Filippi, and to the director Angelo Corsetti, on the presence of wild boars in our countryside.
“The wild boar population in Tuscany - continues the commissioner - today amounts to about 160.000 units (and not 450.000 as Coldiretti points out) out of a total of about 400.000 ungulates; a fact that highlights how the population of these animals is starting to decline, and this also thanks to the killing carried out following regional control interventions as well as those due to ordinary hunting (332.000 wild boars killed in a three-year period). An evident sign of this downsizing comes from the estimate of the damage caused by ungulates (therefore not only by wild boars): in 2017, when the effects of the law had not yet been felt, it was reached 3,2 million euro, a figure that then dropped sharply both in 2018 (1 million and 67 thousand) and in 2019 (1 million and 80.000 euros).
These are very different numbers from those indicated by Coldiretti (4,5 million per year only for wild boars) and which, I repeat, they come directly from the Atc". "Inaccurate, allow me - continues the commissioner - is also the reference to the case of the closure of the A11 last November due to the presence of wild boars: that closure was arranged to allow capture of some roe deer which were located in the land near the highway. The intervention served to avoid the risk of accidents. And speaking of this, I would like to point out that in this area too the actions put in place by the Region, ATC and hunters have produced a turnaround: reports of road accidents linked to the presence of wildlife, which had reached 430 in 2016, dropped to 100 in 2019 ″.
“My conclusion - underlines Remaschi - is that, as also highlighted by the regional hunting conference last year in which all categories participated, including Coldiretti, still today we are faced with a worrying phenomenon and on which to keep our guard up: farmers, in fact, continue to strongly feel this threat to their work and their daily fatigue. But today, as we are no longer in the same situation as in 2015, we have to overcome the emergency phase, which by its nature is only suitable for short periods, putting into operation a new system that allows us to permanently maintain certain increasingly effective and faster levels of intervention".
"For example - he concludes - just as requested by agricultural organizations, including Coldiretti, thanks to Law 70 of December 2019, farmers, when they register the presence of wildlife, they can ask, with a simple phone call, the intervention of the provincial police. In this way they will have the certainty of having an answer within a period which, when fully operational, will be 36 hours. This legislation gives farmers, but also mayors for the problems of fauna in urban areas, two decisive elements to face the problem: a clear and simple method to get the police to intervene and rapid times for their intervention. This too seems to me a not just result and it confirms the presence of the Region alongside the agricultural sector and the awareness of a serious problem, but which can, with the necessary constancy and over time, be faced ”.