L’AQUILA. Deer hunting: the day of truth is October 9. This is the date of the hearing before the Regional Administrative Court of L’Aquila. The animal rights associations Wwf, Lav and Lndc have filed an appeal, based on six grounds, against the Region, Ispra (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research) and the Territorial Hunting Areas (Atc) of Sulmona, Avezzano, Barisciano, L’Aquila and Subequano.
Environmentalists are asking for the annulment, with prior suspension pending the judgment on the merits, of the council’s resolution Marsilioapproved on August 8th and proposed by the vice president with responsibility for hunting, Emanuel Imprudentand the related attachments, including the positive opinion of ISPRA, which authorizes, starting from October 14, the slaughter of 469 animals, divided by sex and age classes – cubs, females and adult males – in the five ATCs summoned to court.
“The contested resolution is seriously detrimental to the environmental interests of which the appellant associations are the bearers (…) taking into account the fact that a selective hunting activity not preceded by a correct collection and evaluation of the data can result in irreparable damage to the life of the specimens, even cubs under 12 months of age, which should not have been subjected to removal”, is written in the document prepared by the lawyers. Michele Pezone e Francis Paul Febbowhich assist the three associations. And here are the reasons for the appeal.
1)MONITORING. “The deer harvest is assumed to have been ordered in implementation of the Regional Wildlife Hunting Plan 2020-2024. The Pfvr was subjected to two different evaluation procedures, the Environmental Impact Assessment (Vinca) and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (Vas). The latter, in particular, has the purpose of ensuring the adaptive management of planning processes over time. The Plans must not be static but dynamic. The Monitoring Plan is contained in the final declaration of the Vas and provides for many indicators, many of which are to be measured on an annual, biennial, triennial or five-yearly basis. However, from the consultation of the documents of the Region, no documents in this sense can be deduced”.
2)THE OTHER MISSING ACT. «Given the lack of certain data mentioned above, it is even more serious that the Deer Culling Plan has not been subjected to an Environmental Impact Assessment procedure».
3) PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE. “It seems inappropriate to entrust the collection of data in the field mainly to the same subjects who, at a later stage, are responsible for carrying out selective hunting, given that this activity should be based exclusively on monitoring entrusted to “third-party” structures with solid scientific preparation. In the report on the proposed management of the deer population, implemented by the contested resolution, these monitorings were taken as a reference starting from 2018 which, by admission of the same writer of the report, had a rather variable trend, probably linked to the “lack of uniformity in the collection and archiving of data””.
4)THE DAMAGES. «As regards the impacts on crops (…) from the reading carried out, an unequivocal causal link between the number of deer and the damage to agriculture does not emerge».
5)THE ACCIDENTS. «With regard to the impacts on traffic, the analysis of the data becomes even more confusing (…) The report, in fact, contains the following sentence: “Aware of the fact that the category “ungulate” could also refer to the wild boar species, it was deemed appropriate to consider the incidents involving “ungulates” as being attributable to the category “deer” (not identified at species level) rather than to that of suids”».
6)THE ISPRA CASE. «ISPRA, which was called upon to provide a scientific opinion, incurred a serious defect in its investigation, as it relied, by its own admission, on the data contained “in the documentation attached to the request” which, as stated above, are absolutely lacking because they were not preceded by adequate monitoring». (l.c.)
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