Hares, hunting and Marsican bear. The presence of the Italian hare Lepus corsicanus (species or subspecies?) In small nuclei in the mountainous areas of central and southern Italy has been known for years, or at least imaginable (because only with DNA investigations can we be sure).
This year, ISPRA and the Region have suddenly established that individuals of the species (?) Are still present in the external areas of the Abruzzo National Park (the usual discovery of hot water of which our faunal experts are samples!).
And here is the unexpected imposition of a ban on hare hunting in a whole series of Municipalities on the borders or in the vicinity of the Park; note well, not limiting itself to mountain areas above 1300/1500 meters where the probability of survival of still pure nuclei is certainly high, but also in the valleys of the plains and neighboring hills where the presence of repopulation hares is obvious and well-known (Liberations, regularly authorized, have been taking place there for countless decades!).
And, it should be noted well, this in the presence of a vast mountain territory already closed to hunting, where also, for over fifty years, there have never been repopulations and never hunted: Parco d'Abruzzo, Sirente-Velino, Majella and Gran Sasso-Laga, and where yes, merit studies would be desirable!
It is true that for other mountain municipalities hunting for hare remains allowed (a feel-good compromise?), but they have established the absurd obligation for hunters to bring eventually killed hares to the provincial laboratories for examination: something that no one will do for obvious reasons! They capture bears and wolves to study DNA and instead of doing the same thing for the hare in the protected areas, they force the hunters to collaborate (at their expense!), And after having penalized them! As his friend and former park keeper "Lillino" Finamore says, "in this way we will end up turning many honest hunters into poachers!"
Riding on the law 157 which refers only to the typical species (Lepus europaeus), we want to defend the Italian hare as a species in its own right (a trick, to make life difficult for hunters, or irrefutable scientific recognition?). And, rather than, if anything, activate the world of hunting to a management that is increasingly aimed at its protection, regardless of whether it is a species or subspecies, also through bans on repopulation and encouraging the self-management of the remaining populations, favoring farms for this purpose, perhaps the most ethical hunting category is almost treacherously hit, moreover in an unreasonable way!
This is not conservation of biodiversity, it is the will of wanting to hit an activity that the politically transversal anti-hunt animalism has been carrying out for years. Instead of a wise, correct management of the faunal heritage, we aim at a very Italian defense to the bitter end of every animal, a drift that will eventually lead to the abolition of farms and slaughterhouses, to a social change that will put the entire rural supply chain in crisis, with incalculable economic damage, imposed on the majority of citizens by a minority of "elected".
In Abruzzo they have "harnessed" upright areas which, coincidentally, are precisely those that form those "corridors" between one park and another that have been wanted to be closed to hunting for years; that is, we want to extend the ban on hunting through more and more restrictions and taxes to hunters! It would seem a clear policy of subtle measures aimed at creating areas closed to hunting with the excuse of the Parks (which have other problems!), Making them no longer practicable by hunters, discouraging their hunting activity; that is, the aim is to make the Abruzzo region an off-limits area for hunting, circumventing the laws and rights of those who pay a lot of taxes to practice a legitimate outdoor activity provided for by the State and part of the democratic rights guaranteed by the Constitution !
And then, afterthought: why decide on these measures when the hunt has begun and not months before? That we want to prevent appeals by making them late? Make sure that with the timing of our judiciary, we arrive at a sentence only at the end of the hunting season? And why only in the Abruzzo mountains, given that the probability of the presence of the Italian hare is notorious for all the mountains of central and southern Italy? Could the bear be the real purpose of the ban, and not the hare's DNA, which in fact could be studied even without the help of hunters? In this case, without this being of any use to save the Marsican bear, on the contrary…!
If this really were the case (and to think badly you almost always get it right, said a well-known politician!), As usual, to solve the problem of the bear they take it out on the only category of citizens that has never threatened the bear, with the aim of saving it by avoiding its purely theoretical killing by mistake (historically an error NEVER OCCURRED !!!), when in reality the bear mainly needs food in the agro-pastoral areas of the Park, with less tourist disturbance in the ramneti (while precisely to monitor them, the disturbance was also extended to those of the Ernici Mountains to establish their presence - which in this season is merely and notoriously occasional!) and less competition for food with deer and wild boar. Instead, regarding these emergencies: zero measures!
Finally, it is true that the Italic hare deserves protection. But the Apennine subspecies of the Wolf (Canis lupus italicus) deserves the same protection. Instead, coincidentally, ISPRA requires sudden drastic measures for the Italic hare (when, if anything, the elimination of the allochthonous hares would be the first measure to be taken to save it!), While for the defense of the Italic wolf subspecies no measure is taken and / or requested against the invasion of "alpine" wolves (increasingly present also in the famous "hole" in the province of Savona, which could and should become an insurmountable barrier!).
A question of goat wool, which in one case is not resolved, while in the other it is exceeded: for some, of no scientific value for the wolf but of high scientific value for the hare! Here, then, how the Italic Hare and the conservation of the Marsican Bear become a convenient excuse to hit hunting and hunters! The Italian hare as Achilles' heel!
Frank Zunino
Secretary General of the Italian Wilderness Association
(September 28, 2015)