15 MILLION EUROS was not enough! They have spent it to study the Marsican Bear in the last ten years: State Forestry Corps, Ministry of the Environment, Abruzzo and Lazio Regions, Abruzzo National Park, La Sapienza University, European Union, WWF and also an American citizen philanthropist. Results for the purpose of its protection? ZERO! Now the searches have been closed (they say!). They did not save the bear, but certainly, at least in practice, numerous jobs have been created for researchers and generous salaries for the coordinators: a real bargain! Then you have to come up with more (research)! On March 4th there will be a new high-level meeting in Rome, again to try to find a solution that can prevent the extinction of the Marsican Bear, now reduced, according to optimistic estimates, to less than 50 specimens scattered throughout the Center. Italy. Target? Creating a sperm bank (Conservation breeding they call it, because it sounds better in English!). The idea will certainly end up pleasing politicians, who when they smell money are always willing to finance any initiative, especially if the commitment is abstruse and unclear to whom the money should go. We do not say the reasons, but they are understandable. In the meantime, it is urgent to put the carousel back into play!
Yet it is not possible to find a few tens of thousands of euros per year to be used for the sowing of land for crops to be lost in favor of the Bear. Not to mention the payment of the damages of wolves and bears at least in the area of the Abruzzo Parks where the predation of the wolf ends up indirectly helping the bear too. Too simple, too trivial, too obvious, too popular and too rural and… too reasonable. Do you want to put your university studies ?!
In Trentino they even did "four years of research and 256 interviews in 400 pages" to discover hot water (that is, that the bear is afraid of man!). We are at the top, if not ridiculous! So let's go on with Conservation breeding. If nothing else, we will have quite a few domestic bears (someone will later call them "problematic"), certain that to introduce them into the environment and / or solve their problems (for this they have already created a team, educated to the sound of teachers and courses of study!) will then be allocated other money.
We are simpler, more practical and, we believe, reasonable:
1. Strict tourist control, with absolute closure to all, of not a few wild territories to be reserved for the bear, with no exceptions whatsoever.
2. Conspicuous cultivation of agricultural land, today practically all abandoned, with crops to be defended with the construction of “Finamore fences”.
3. Encouragement of sheep herding, today increasingly abandoned and / or prohibited, possibly with direct management initiatives by the public authorities (with rapid payment of damages and reimbursement to breeders of all direct and indirect losses of wolves and bears).
4. Severe control, with drastic reduction of the presences, of the wild boar (but also of the deer) in the Park area and in its surrounding areas.
5. Absolute blocking of any urban development project outside the inhabited and habitable areas (ie areas D of the Park) in the primary habitat area of the bear.
Frank Zunino
Secretary General of the Italian Wilderness Association
formerly the first scholar in the field of the Marsican Bear
(March 3, 2014)
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