In the Marche region, starlings, pigeons and turtle doves can be hunted 'to mitigate damage to agriculture'

In the Marches it will be possible to shoot starlings, pigeons and collared doves. This is established by the Region which approved the withdrawal by way of derogation

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

In the Marches it will be possible to shoot starlings, pigeons and collared doves. This was established by the Region which approved the withdrawal of the three species in question as an exception, giving the motivation to 'mitigate the damage of these species to agriculture'.

Thus, in addition to the daily maximum game bag, there will also be an annual maximum. It reads in the deliberations of the council:

"To prevent serious damage to agricultural crops, the withdrawal of the Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) by way of derogation is authorized only with the stalking system, without the use of live calls, within a radius of 100 m from vineyards, olive groves and orchards with pending fruits, in which dissuasive systems are in place and always within 100 m of the scattered productive vegetational nuclei, in the days of early hunting opening provided for by the 2020/21 hunting calendar and in the period between the third Sunday of September and 06 December 2020 ".

And again: "to authorize the withdrawal in derogation of the Storno in the municipalities that at least in one of the last three years (2017, 2018 and 2019) have been affected by damage to agricultural crops of not less than € 100,00 / year". Then follows the list of the municipalities concerned.

The same provisions and reasons also for the two species in question, namely pigeons and collared doves. While the Marche hunters rejoice, environmentalists protest against hunting. Already a few months ago, precisely for the Marche they had also pointed the finger on the side effects of hunting, or the emission of large quantities of lead which according to the calculations of the Amici Animali Association Osimo, Enpa, Lac, Lav, Lipu, Lupus in Fabula and WWF Marche, would be sixty tons per year.

"In the tables published in the Hunting Wildlife Plan, the Marche Region declares 93.282 specimens culled in 2016 and 78.033 in 2017. But from documents of the Marche Region itself transmitted in 2018 to the Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, we know that 2016 were culled in 114.108. examples of Storno, while in 2017 the culls were 87.621, numbers therefore far higher by at least 15% ”, the associations wrote in a joint note.

"Not to mention all the unrecorded slaughterings that disappear from the count, such as the animals killed or mortally wounded and never found, for example in the hunting of wood pigeons, where there are a great many unrecovered animals".

The fear now is that with this new opening there is an even more problematic impact both from the animal rights point of view and from the management of public health.

Source: Marche Region / Hunting Wildlife Plan / Passion Hunting