Italian farmers kill wolves and anonymously dump them in piazzas and along roads in silent protest against livestock deaths
Wolves are protected by European Union and Italian legislation Photo: ALAMY
Farmers in Italy have taken the law into their own hands in response to a boom
in the number of wolves roaming the country, illegally shooting the
predators and dumping them in towns and villages as a public reprisal for
the death of livestock.
The wolf was pushed to the verge of extinction in Italy by the 1970s, when the
population dipped to just 100 individuals, but since then a ban on shooting,
trapping and poisoning has achieved spectacular success, with numbers now
estimated at around 1,000. The population is concentrated in the Alps and along the Apennines, the rugged
spine of mountains which runs down the peninsula.
The barbaric backlash against the revival of the species has been particularly
pronounced in Tuscany, where at least eight wolves have been illegally shot
in the last two months. Another apparently strangled to death after being caught in an illegal snare.
Many of the carcasses were dumped prominently in villages or by roadsides as
part of an anonymous protest by farmers against what they regard as a grave
threat to their flocks. One wolf was left in a piazza in the village of Scansano, in the Maremma
region of Tuscany, a coastal area famed for its white cattle, marshes and
Etruscan ruins. A second body was found dumped in the village of Manciano, also in southern
Tuscany, while the corpse of a two-year-old female wolf which had been shot
dead was left by the side of a road leading to the town of Saturnia in the
same region a few days before Christmas. “The message was clear — we can stand this no longer. The wolves are
slaughtering our sheep, so we’re slaughtering the wolves,” commented one
Italian daily, lending a sinister Mafia-style note to the story and fuelling
anti-wolf fever.
Farmers say they are having their livelihoods ruined by regular wolf raids. “Wolves attacked my animals three times just in December,” said Franco Mattei, a sheep farmer. “The first time, I came across a sheep which had been disembowelled. Another two had just disappeared. On the third occasion I killed the wolf — it was the day before New Year’s Eve,” he said. “When sheep are attacked they are blinded with fear and run off, sometimes falling into ravines or ditches.” Farmers can apply for government funds to erect electric fences around their flocks, but these have only limited success against a predator as determined and intelligent as the wolf. “Farmers who find their sheep fold devastated want an immediate response. And if that response is not forthcoming, then they take the law into their own hands,” said Enzo Rossi, an agricultural official in the province of Grosseto in Tuscany.
The killing of wolves by farmers has been strongly condemned by environmental groups. “The discovery of these carcasses should seriously concern all those tasked with managing and protecting the wildlife heritage of our country,” said Dante Caserta, from the Italian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature. The wolf was protected by European Union and Italian legislation and by killing them, landowners had show “contempt” for the law, he said.
Conservationists believe that many of the sheep and other livestock being killed are in fact the victims of feral dogs or wolf half-breeds, rather than full-blood wolves. Farmers who lose livestock to wolves can apply for compensation from the government, with the price of a sheep set at between 150 and 180 euros, depending on its age. But landowners complain that it often takes five or six months for the payments to be made.
Coldiretti, a national organisation representing farmers, said that the return of the wolf and other large mammals such as the brown bear, was a welcome development but that farmers needed prompt and adequate compensation. “It shouldn’t be just farmers who pay the price of predators living together with domestic livestock,” said the organisation’s Stefano Masini.
Aside from the ban on hunting and poisoning, the return of the wolf in Italy has been helped by the depopulation of the countryside, leaving vast tracts of hill country to return to scrub and forest, and the consequent increase in prey species like wild boar and deer.Wolves in Italy are now spreading across the border into France, where they have caused a similar outcry among farmers.
Across Europe, the wolf population quadrupled between 1970 and 2005, according to a study released in September by Rewilding Europe, a conservation organisation which wants to return a million hectares of land to its natural state and bring back some of the continent’s most emblematic species.
source
Farmers say they are having their livelihoods ruined by regular wolf raids. “Wolves attacked my animals three times just in December,” said Franco Mattei, a sheep farmer. “The first time, I came across a sheep which had been disembowelled. Another two had just disappeared. On the third occasion I killed the wolf — it was the day before New Year’s Eve,” he said. “When sheep are attacked they are blinded with fear and run off, sometimes falling into ravines or ditches.” Farmers can apply for government funds to erect electric fences around their flocks, but these have only limited success against a predator as determined and intelligent as the wolf. “Farmers who find their sheep fold devastated want an immediate response. And if that response is not forthcoming, then they take the law into their own hands,” said Enzo Rossi, an agricultural official in the province of Grosseto in Tuscany.
The killing of wolves by farmers has been strongly condemned by environmental groups. “The discovery of these carcasses should seriously concern all those tasked with managing and protecting the wildlife heritage of our country,” said Dante Caserta, from the Italian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature. The wolf was protected by European Union and Italian legislation and by killing them, landowners had show “contempt” for the law, he said.
Conservationists believe that many of the sheep and other livestock being killed are in fact the victims of feral dogs or wolf half-breeds, rather than full-blood wolves. Farmers who lose livestock to wolves can apply for compensation from the government, with the price of a sheep set at between 150 and 180 euros, depending on its age. But landowners complain that it often takes five or six months for the payments to be made.
Coldiretti, a national organisation representing farmers, said that the return of the wolf and other large mammals such as the brown bear, was a welcome development but that farmers needed prompt and adequate compensation. “It shouldn’t be just farmers who pay the price of predators living together with domestic livestock,” said the organisation’s Stefano Masini.
Aside from the ban on hunting and poisoning, the return of the wolf in Italy has been helped by the depopulation of the countryside, leaving vast tracts of hill country to return to scrub and forest, and the consequent increase in prey species like wild boar and deer.Wolves in Italy are now spreading across the border into France, where they have caused a similar outcry among farmers.
Across Europe, the wolf population quadrupled between 1970 and 2005, according to a study released in September by Rewilding Europe, a conservation organisation which wants to return a million hectares of land to its natural state and bring back some of the continent’s most emblematic species.
source
No comments:
Post a Comment