Wilderness Italia proposes an extraordinary Commissioner to the Marsicano Bear to the Minister of the Environment.
Dramatic events have characterized the Marsican brown bear population in the last twelve months: the certain loss of at least 4 bears, to which must be added the disappearance of a fifth (the famous "Gemma" bear, of which no one has spoken to us anymore after his "removal" from that of Scanno thanks to a few shots from a rubber bullet rifle, operated by the agents of the same Park). A series of repeated raids by bears to chicken coops (with the killing of one of them!) Which took place in the town of Pettorano sul Gizio (some even involving people!); a census of the population which the authorities have not yet considered communicating the outcome, just as nothing has been known about new births; reports of ever new individuals in agricultural areas throughout the area surrounding the National Park and also far from its borders, with fewer and fewer sightings of specimens in the boundaries of the protected area; two questionable results of the analyzes on dead specimens, reporting one to a supposed death from bovine TB, and another to killing by another bear (motivation to which we would have traced back three months after the discovery of a carcass of several days! ), which is unusual in the world, moreover for a bear weighing almost 200 kg!
This in the face only of measures aimed at harassing the social categories of breeders and hunters, to push bears further and further away with the use of electrified fences, perhaps aimed more at saving money for the authorities than at helping the bear, for example. to install unnecessary signs, to plant and defend Ramno bushes or to prune and plant apple trees whose presence of both plants is already abundant in all the mountains of the Park, to search for diseases of questionable negative influences on the bear (of which he never had suffered before!), to continue with studies and research of biology of which there is no longer any haste and protectionist need. All this straddling the political measure that led to the appointment of the new President of the Park, after a few years of commissioner; a measure that so far does not seem to have changed things much, and indeed, as some assert, has perhaps brought "bad luck" to the Marsican Bear.
As he had already provocatively proposed, the AIW has sent an official registered letter with return receipt to the Minister of the Environment to formally request that an "Extraordinary Commissioner to the Marsican Bear" be appointed as soon as possible, giving him the necessary powers so that he can act there. where too many have not been able or wanted to act. The person proposed for this measure was the figure of the former Commissioner of the Park and already its President, Dr. Giuseppe Rossi, a native of Civitella Alfedena (historic Municipality of the Abruzzo National Park, which he also ruled as Mayor in times certainly best for the bear).
at the request that the AIW has made to the Minister of the Environment, it is also inspired by a similar request that Giuseppe Rossi himself was able to ask with his own note in his post as Commissioner of the Park; notes that it did not get any coverage in the press, and, unfortunately, not even on the part of the political authorities who received it. But, you know, this is a practice in our poor country, where everyone fills their mouth with democracy, but few are capable of truly liberal and democratic behavior! Some excerpts from the above letter are followed by this press release.
Signed by Franco Zunino
Secretary General of the Italian Wilderness Association
(9 October 2014)