The increase in deer and especially wild boar in Liguria, which moved into the cities during the lockdown, is creating worrying problems in inland municipalities.
This is what Coldiretti Liguria notes in the letter sent to the Region to denounce the growing population and ask for timely intervention.
Coldiretti Liguria, for example, included in its presented Decalogue the need to simplify regional legislation on self-protection of agricultural land, to adopt rotation of hunting teams, including those from outside the region, to establish online monitoring of culls to avoid the usual failure to achieve targets, to increase the use of fences and capture cages, and to remove any compensation from the De Minimis regime,” conclude Boeri and Rivarossa.
According to Coldiretti Liguria, wild fauna has now far outnumbered those who attempt to maintain and protect the land. In our countryside, there will soon be more wild animals than workers, while it has long been common to encounter these animals on the streets and in cities. The situation has further worsened following the lockdown of recent months, when, with the territories less protected, wild boars, deer, and others have been free to roam undisturbed and continue to grow in numbers.
In our hinterland, incursions are reported daily by agricultural businesses, where fences and traditional dry stone walls continue to be damaged, while fruit and vegetable crops are being raided, not to mention the damage to vineyards and the threat they pose to farm animals. For these businesses, losing the fruits of their labor over recent months represents yet another loss, compounding that caused by the Covid-19 health emergency, at a time when a genuine market recovery is more necessary and desirable than ever," the farmers explain.
But more generally, frequent incursions by wild fauna are not only threatening the survival of local agricultural businesses, but also the protection of the land, the safety of people, the environment, and the animals themselves, given that such high numbers can also facilitate the outbreak of epizootics, i.e., the spread of diseases between animal species.
