Italian lawmakers last week approved a plan to allow the capture and killing of wild animals in urban areas to curb the roaming of wild boars in cities like Rome. Parliament’s Budget Committee has given the green light to an amendment proposed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Fratelli d’Italia party to the 2023 budget.
Called “wildlife control and containment,” it must be put to a vote before the end of the year. It allows the slaughter of wild animals to, among other things, reinforce road protection.
Fratelli d’Italia points out that it is not about hunting but about “control” and affirms that the numerous wild boars that roam public spaces are dangerous for citizens and motorists, in addition to the risk of spreading diseases.
Lawsuits, traffic accidents, damages… Several stories about these wild boars have spread in recent years.
Rifles “loaded with sleeping pills”
Estimates put the number of wild boars in Italy at two million, and complaints against these animals are numerous. “The only way to contain its expansion is the massacre,” said Marta Farolfi, a deputy for the far-right party.
However, the word wild boar does not appear in the text, it is the term “wildlife” that is used, extending the possibility of this regulation to several species. The article calls for it to be possible to hunt wild species even in areas where hunting is prohibited, including protected areas and urban areas, and even on days when hunting is usually prohibited.
Face aux critiques soulevées par cet article, qui donne l’impression de donner libre cours à la chasse n’importe où, n’importe quand, Tommaso Foti, député Fratelli d’Italia à l’origine de ce texte, assurait la semaine dernière inside the Republic that “rifles will be used, but loaded with sleeping pills.”
On the other hand, there will be no “shots in public gardens” or in neighboring land, he assures. “To pretend that we want to bring hunters with shotguns to the Colosseum is too much,” he adds.
Local and regional police officers, the national forestry police, but also authorized private hunters (who have a hunting license and have received training) may participate in the campaigns.
The article also provides for the possibility of using the animal that has been sacrificed “for food consumption”, if it passes the sanitary hygiene controls.
An “attack on our country’s biodiversity and wildlife”
Animal rights groups, for their part, believe that this measure could endanger protected species, considered part of the wild fauna, such as wolves. deputy for the environmental group Angelo Bonelli criticizes on Twitter the possibility with this text to also attack bears or even foxes.
It denounces an “attack on the biodiversity and wildlife of our country.”
“This scandalous approval marks the beginning of a new season of slaughter,” said Massimo Vitturi of the LAV animal rights association. The Italian International Organization for the Protection of Animals (OIPA) estimated for its part that it could pave the way for “indiscriminate killing of wild animals”.
Opposition groups have promised to take the case to the European Union to have this article annulled.
Source: BFM TV
