In Italy, Giorgia Meloni declares war on wild boars

LETTER FROM ROME

In the midst of the painfully prolonged debates around the development of the Italian budget for 2023, a measure integrated into the finance law stands out. Adopted at the last minute in the Budget Committee, an amendment plans to authorize Italians to hunt wild boar in the streets of their cities. And to eat slaughtered animals. The outskirts of large Italian cities, increasingly frequented by stray ungulates, will therefore no longer serve as a sanctuary for these animals which have been multiplying dangerously throughout the country for several years, causing damage that the authorities are struggling to contain.

Carried by Coldiretti, the very powerful Italian agricultural lobby, and wanted by the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, to respond to a crisis deemed urgent, the expansion of hunting areas has been criticized by the opposition. Stefano Vaccari, a parliamentarian from the Democratic Party (center left), mocked the birth of a “Right Asterix and Obelix” who would have found in the excessive hunt his ” Magic potion ” against what it is now agreed to call in Italy “Invasion of the Boars”.

Because if the method chosen by the majority divides, the observation of the danger represented by the proliferation of these animals in the country, including in urban areas, is unanimously shared. Due to the lack of sufficient means devoted to the precise study of the phenomenon in Italy, reliable figures are lacking. However, specialists estimate that the number of wild boars in the country has tripled in thirty years, Italy now counting 2.3 million, or one individual for 36 inhabitants.

Read also: Hunting: an investigation opened following the broadcast of a video where a child is encouraged to finish off a boar

However, although slaughterings have doubled since the 2000s to reach the figure of 30,000 for the 2021-2022 season, the acceleration of wild boar hunting is not enough to limit the growing influence of this species, including in the urban areas. This phenomenon, which is not limited to Italy, but is observed elsewhere in Europe as well as in North America and Asia, is the product of a range of factors of human origin.

Abundance of edible waste

The massive abandonment of rural areas after the Second World War in Italy resulted in a decline in hunting, while the expansion of cities brought urban concentrations closer to the habitat of wild boars. Densely populated areas are particularly attractive to these omnivorous ungulates, which find an abundance of edible waste there. Urban food sources are moreover not only more easily accessible than those that wild boars could find in their natural habitats, but also more caloric.

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