Swine fever, Confagricoltura: “Delays in laying anti-boar fences”
Genoa. On 2 August 2019, according to the plans in its last August, the works for the laying of the barrier against the horse belt between Piedmont and Liguria.
So far – Confagricoltura Liguria clarifies in a note – there are over 180 cases of African swine fever reported on wild boars between Piedmont and Liguria, the most recent one yesterday in the Scrivia Valley.
“Due to the activity restrictions imposed by the emergency, the slaughter of wild boars in the infected area is suspended. The fence – declares Luca De Michelis, president of Confagricoltura Liguria – is still far from being completed and the spread of the epidemic continues to remain high: ask the commissioner and the regional authorities to provide agricultural organizations with updated information on the timing of creation of the anti-wild boar net and to intensify efforts to complete the works “.
Confagricoltura, as done more and more in recent months in Liguria, underlines the uncontrolled increase in the populations of ungulates today and the fact that, from January to, a few thousand wild boars have been killed, “while Liguria Region is to reach, by the end of the year, thousands of animals eliminated with the selection hunt; adding the sampling planned with the control hunt and the planned one, the numbers of the planned slaughtering rise to over 40 thousand ”.
“The times for the completion of the construction sites are lengthening dangerously – declares Luca De Michelis – and the objective of 40 thousand animals killed by the end of the year is practically impossible to reach: students have the right to know when the works can be completed. Nowadays we hardly talk about the emergency – continues De Michelis – but the danger of the epidemic spreading continues to worry farmers and the entire supply chain ”.
If we consider that there are one hundred culls per month by the regional wildlife-environmental surveillance unit in the first seven months of 2022, we understand – according to Confagricoltura Liguria – how far we are from at least a discrete selection action.
“It is necessary – concludes Confagricoltura Liguria – a decisive change of gear by all the parties responsible for implementing the necessary remedial and eradication actions, without, for example, getting lost in sterile if not harmful debates such as the one on wild boars’ locked up ‘in the Maggiolina Park in La Spezia ”