In addition to transmitting ASF by destroying food production, wild boars also cause road accidents with deaths and injuries. Coldiretti called for more effective vector control measures by announcing an awareness demonstration in Milan on 18 June against the invasion of the species
The Lombardy Region cuts bureaucracy to encourage measures to reduce the number of wild boars, the main vector of transmission of ASF (African swine fever). Coldiretti Lombardy has, in the meantime, sounded yet another alarm bell with a demonstration scheduled for next 18 June 2024 (at 9.30 am) in Milan, in Piazza Duca d’Aosta, in front of Palazzo Pirelli, to raise awareness against the invasion of wild boars.
The Lombard president, Attilio Fountain, signed a new ordinance to prevent and control the virus (see also here): «With this provision – he commented – we intend to encourage as much as possible the depopulation activities of wild boars, the main vectors of ASF in farmed pigs and responsible for considerable damage to the agriculture. The ordinance confirms all the measures already in place, but intends to facilitate the fight against wild boars by reducing the constraints of bureaucracy, procedures and management of economic resources”.
Here are the main points of the Lombard ordinance on PSA
These are the main new points included in the document that streamlines bureaucracy signed by the president:
- In protected areas, such as parks and nature reserves, the principle of substitutive power is introduced by the Lombardy Region if the managing body is not able to adopt the control plan.
- The regional hunting areas and districts will be able to make use of the economic resources not used for wild boar control and management activities, encouraging the creation of structures suitable for the delivery and storage of carcasses on site.
- Wild boar control activities coordinated by the provincial police may be authorized without necessarily requiring the presence of an agent, using remote methods. Firing will also be permitted from a vehicle (for example from the bed of a pickup). Operators will also be able to use night vision goggles and any light source that can facilitate the activity. However, the necessary safety conditions will be guaranteed.
- Simplification of the methods for biometric surveys on killed wild boars.
- In “restriction zone II” the killing of wild boars is permitted as wildlife control. Other forms of hunting are permitted, as long as they respect biosecurity protocols. In “restriction zone I”, wild boar hunting is permitted and must aim to kill as many animals as possible.
- Another novelty concerns the consumption of wild boar meat killed in “restriction zone II”. Until now, all carcasses had to be destroyed, now it will be possible to authorize private domestic use of the slaughtered animals for self-consumption, provided that they pass through facilities approved by the ATS veterinary service, in compliance with specific biosafety procedures and that such carcasses test negative to laboratory tests for the detection of the Psa virus.
No danger for meat
«The President’s new Ordinance – concludes the Councilor for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Alessandro Beduschi – is a further response to the need to control this invasive species, to protect the livestock heritage represented by pig farms which, for months now, have strengthened safety measures to the maximum to protect a fundamental sector for Lombardy and national agri-food . Today the meat coming from our farms is the safest and most controlled in the world.”
A strengthening of measures against PSA in Lombardy is urgent
This is how the Lombardy Region responded to the blitz announced by the president of the regional Coldiretti, Gianfranco Comincioliwhich calls for decisive interventions to manage the ASF emergency which is causing health, social, economic and environmental problems.
«Wild animals – as Coldiretti Lombardia has made known – transmit diseases, destroy food production, exterminate crops, besiege fields, cause road accidents with deaths and injuries and go as far as urban centers where they scratch around in the waste with dangers for the health and safety of people”.
For the regional agricultural organization «there is an urgent need to strengthen the action to contain the presence of wild boars, a change of pace that must necessarily go beyond the approval of the Urgent Intervention Plan, through the definition of the provisions that can allow its effective implementation”.
Also in Piedmont Coldiretti urges effective measures to control the virus
Coldiretti Piemonte also raises the alert level, recalling the number of road accidents linked to wildlife, after the latest death of a motorcyclist, caused in the capital by the crossing of a wild boar.
«The eradication activity must be further strengthened by implementing all the measures, including extraordinary ones, envisaged by the Priu, such as the possibility of interventions in self-defense by the agricultural entrepreneur even in Protected Areas – he explains Bruno Mecca Cici, vice president of Coldiretti Piemonte with territorial delegation to animal husbandry -, giving continuity to the previous ones and urgently making the new ones effective. We remind you that the entire sector and the Piedmontese pig production chain are at risk, which includes around 3 thousand companies, a turnover of almost 400 million euros and 1 million 200 thousand animals destined, above all, for the protected circuits of the main Italian PDOs for the preparation of the best national delicatessen, such as Parma and San Daniele ham.”
«Since companies have invested to adapt to biosafety, it is absolutely necessary – they highlight Cristina Brizzolari, president of Coldiretti Piemonte, and Bruno Rivarossa, confederal delegate – preserve the 3 pig districts identified in Piedmont, within which there can be no wild boars, within a radius of 15 kilometres. This is why the Region must commit to implementing all the necessary actions for the total removal of wild boars, involving all the relevant bodies, including the Parks.”
