The Lombardy Region has defined the conditions for suspending woodcock harvesting due to frost for the upcoming hunting season. Compliance with ISPRA guidelines is mandatory.
Like other regions, starting from the 2021-2022 hunting season, Lombardy will adopt the Frost Protocol for woodcock hunting.
This requirement is made necessary by the guidelines provided by ISPRA regarding the calendar. If the Lombardy Region fails to adopt the Institute's guidelines, the hunting calendar could be exposed to unlawful violations.
The FROST Protocol uses a mathematical mechanism that operates on the average temperatures of the months of December and January; measurements taken weekly on Mondays: if the average daily temperature has always been below zero (at least -0,5°C) on the consecutive days of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and the forecast always predicts it to be below zero (at least -0,5°C) for all three subsequent days of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, woodcock collection will be closed until the following Monday (the day on which the temperatures will be rechecked).
These are conditions of prolonged freezing, as the average daily temperature must remain below zero for a week before sampling can be suspended until temperatures rise.
