Some time ago, news about the Wolf circulated on the Internet. He was referring to hybrids born from dogs crossed with wolves. Strange case, few have talked about it and / or circulated the news: and it was not news to be missed for those who have an interest in the defense of the Wolf. In this regard, we see, among other things, what a press release from the site "www.Greenreport.it" of last December 20 reported: The Forestry Corps denounces "dangerous crosses, wild wolves (Canis lupus spp) bloodied with dogs belonging to the canine breed Czechoslovakian wolf (Ceskoslovenský vlciak) ”. It is the result of the operation carried out by the Cites Central Service of Rome of the Cfs in various Italian regions in collaboration with the Provincial Investigative Units of the Environmental and Forestry Police of the 8 provinces concerned (Alessandria, Salerno, Pistoia, Modena, Parma, Rimini, Cosenza and Arezzo). The operation stems from an anonymous complaint sent to various institutions. In Italy there are currently over 120 Czechoslovakian wolf farms, a dog belonging to the group of shepherds and cattle dogs that has the temper, mentality and trainability of a German shepherd and the strength, physical characteristics and endurance of a wolf. The investigations of the Cfs have shown that "Some breeders have fraudulently mated specimens of Czechoslovakian wolves with wild wolves from the Carpathians (European wolf), North America (Mackenzie wolf) and in some cases with Apennine wolves to improve the characteristics genetics and morphology of the breed ".
According to Antonio Nicoletti, national manager of protected areas and biodiversity of Legambiente, "To improve the conservation of the wolf in our country, it would be appropriate to concentrate efforts on the control and repression of fraudulent attempts at genetic pollution of the species that are added to the already present accidental spread of hybrid specimens in nature ".
According to some investigations carried out by the Forestry between Modena and Reggio Emilia, “Reproductive phenomena would have occurred in nature due to the accidental spread of hybrid specimens. The hypothesis could be traced back to the discovery in recent months of some dogs killed by shooting or by poachers who would have mistaken them for wolves or by the illegal breeders themselves because they were considered unmanageable. The practice of re-bleeding between dogs and wolves was also suspended in the Czech Republic not only because it was prohibited, but because it risked generating genetic hybrids with a very aggressive nature and nature ”.
Well, how can we avoid that these "wolf dogs", which the CFS tells us have also escaped from the farms, do not lead us to think of the many animals that in recent years have made themselves famous with heavy predations on livestock and hunting dogs? Semi-domestic animals or in any case accustomed to humans (as confirmed by the numerous easy observations of wolves in the Piedmontese Alps)? Or animals reported in little or no places frequented by wild wolves (how not to let your thoughts run wild even at the strange "Lupo Ezechiele" - or "Ligabue" - captured a few years ago along the Parma junction, considered by all to be an authentic Apennine wolf although the physical appearance left much to be desired, and then massacred in the Cuneo area by the same "real" wolves as soon as he met them?).
Years later, we also learn - according to reports circulated on the web - that DNA has shown that the Franco-Piedmontese wolves come from the Casentinesi Forests. But wasn't it once said that these wolves came from Abruzzo? And then, all these years to establish a truth that was already taken for granted fifteen years ago, when leading experts asserted that DNA was the same for all European wolves? (DNA, at the time also questioned by the veterinarian of the Gran Paradiso National Park). Now do we even distinguish as "different" those of the Casentinesi Forests (where, however, they came from the expansion of the population of central Italy)? Just ridiculous! And, after the news spread by the CFS, how can we not go back to what the undersigned had to write in those years about the appearance of American wolves for some specimens photographed along the French border? How many versions of this blessed DNA, never put into the hands of super-partes laboratories (and with blind samples and of undeclared provenance)! At this point, given the results, perhaps it would be appropriate to leave it to the experts of the CIS-Carabinieri, rather than to our organic game!
Meanwhile, the wolf population in Italy grows from year to year as well as from year to year the damage that breeders suffer and that they are rarely or badly compensated (then one wonders if someone does justice with their own hands!); this while in other nations, those that Italians usually consider more civilized and democratic (which certainly are at least more practical and efficient!) such as Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, France and the USA, to contain the damage the populations of wolves are kept under control allowing by law the elimination of excess numbers. Today even the populations of the Puma - in great numerical growth in the USA - are subjected to controls with programmed culling: 100 specimens per year in North Dakota alone, with an estimated population of 300 individuals!
And, as far as the wolf is concerned, there is recent news of two herds that federal wildlife authorities have even decided to exterminate in a large Idaho Wilderness Area due to their excessive impact on deer populations (but they are only the latest cases, in a country where the wolf has been kept under control for some time in all the states where populations of this animal exist). Not to mention the measure taken by the French Parliament which, obviously with regulation, authorizes the killing of wolves when the damage becomes irrepressible (a measure so far opposed by animal rights activists and which in Italy has had - not surprisingly! - very little visibility in the press and in networks, for more than intuitive reasons!).
On the other hand, we accept with indifference the excessive impact on calves, sheep and horses (which nobody wants to compensate), forcing the breeders to bear the burden of an excessive presence of wolves; but also, let's not forget, the honor of an increase in use for alpine pastoralism, which, precisely because in the area without the presence of the wolf, was almost wild and in the absence of guardian, while today it needs daily control and accompaniment: and this involves a burden that no one reimburses!
The excessive presence of the Wolf (the "official" numbers clash with logic and are artfully kept low!) Is, among other things, demonstrated not so much by the censuses of these predators, as by the increase in the number of animals killed illegally (news of the last few days) and the damage they inflict which are proof of this, although you try to put them on the phantom "wild dogs" (which no one ever meets!), wild dogs that, coincidentally: one, do not exist where there are no wolves ; two, even if there were any logic, it would have been that they themselves were prey to wolves as it is an impossible coexistence (the end made by the “Wolf Ezekiel” is proof of this, and so are the predations on hunting dogs). Among other things, no one cares about the risk that the Abruzzese herds (increasingly in numerical growth) may sooner or later (and who knows if this has not already happened, as some suspect) also prey on the puppies of the Marsican bear, which already many other threats faces.
To conclude, it may seem absurd, but today it is precisely by regulating the reduction of the presence of the Wolf with authorized killing that it is protected from the risk of extinction, and with it all species of predatory fauna, threatened by reckless poisoning; certainly not the useless, expensive and ineffective methods that some propose to keep wolves away from domestic livestock in order not to recognize the need for a reduction in their number (you want wolves alive, but you want to prevent them from eating!): meanwhile, those who pay are always the breeders!
Frank Zunino
AIW General Secretary
(January 7, 2014)
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