Between an incoming bill and an early start to the hunting season, September is turning out to be a month entirely devoted to hunting. On the afternoon of Wednesday 16 September, the Chamber's Agriculture Committee resumes, after the summer recess, its examination of amendments to the hunting bill, already approved by the Senate and dubbed "shoot-everything" by civil society associations. But the start date now matters only up to a point: the majority has already decided to schedule the measure for a floor vote in November, regardless of whether the committee has or has not concluded what promises to be a very lengthy debate. On the table there remain over one million amendments, the vast majority of which were tabled by the opposition as an obstructionist tool. Among these, however, are also some bearing the signatures of two majority MPs (Rita Dalla Chiesa and Deborah Bergamini, of Forza Italia), which therefore "risk" improving, at least somewhat, a text that has been heavily contested by animal rights and environmental associations.

Approved by the Senate last June with 80 votes in favour, 56 against and two abstentions, the hunting bill rewrites the previous law, 157/1992, effectively replacing the fundamental principle of "protection" of wildlife — under which hunting was essentially an exception — with that of "management" — which instead regards hunting as a useful tool — opening up hunting in state-owned land, public forests and parks, even beaches, and making Ispra's opinions on hunting calendars no longer binding. The text, as it currently stands, also extends the rules on live decoys, permits the use of optical and optoelectronic instruments for selective hunting of ungulates and opens wildlife-hunting estates to a business enterprise model, while removing the reference to the wolf from the list of specially protected species.

What could change in the hunting bill

The million-plus amendments leave room to hope for some small improvements. The most delicate issue concerns live decoys: the Forza Italia amendments aim to ban their capture and breeding, albeit only from 2028 onwards and with possible regional exemptions until the end of 2030. Among the other proposals that could pass are those to remove the skylark and rock ptarmigan from the list of huntable species, without adding the wild goose and pigeon; to restrict the use of optical and optoelectronic instruments solely to selective wild boar hunting; to ban wildlife management operations on days of hunting silence; to exclude national parks and protected areas from the calculation of the share of territory off-limits to hunting; to keep beaches and lidos outside the maritime state property planning; not to extend the season at agritourism-hunting estates and to restore the closing date to the first ten days of February. On the sanctions front, proposals include the automatic suspension of the hunting licence (from three months to one year, no longer a maximum cap of three months) and arrest combined with a fine — no longer as an alternative — for those who hunt in protected areas.

It should be noted that even a single one of these changes would require a new reading in the Senate, further lengthening the legislative process as the budget law and the end of the parliamentary term draw closer, while the majority is instead showing a great deal of urgency: the decision to bring the text to the floor without waiting for the committee's work to conclude has in fact prompted the coalition Stop caccia selvaggia — comprising Enpa, Lac, Lav, Legambiente, Lipu BirdLife and Wwf Italia — to speak of a "very serious democratic breach over a reform that touches on fundamental constitutional principles". The associations denounce "an institutional overreach of extreme gravity, which curtails parliamentary debate" on a measure that affects the protection of wildlife, biodiversity and ecosystems.

For Stop Caccia selvaggia, the decision to bring the timetable forward is "driven exclusively by political and electoral considerations, aimed at satisfying the demands of a narrow minority interest group", with wildlife once again reduced to a "tool for political consensus" and treated "as a bargaining chip". The associations are calling on Parliament to "fully exercise its prerogatives, guaranteeing a thorough examination of the amendments and a transparent process of debate".

The season has already begun in 16 regions

The parliamentary haste is, moreover, consistent with the eagerness shown in reopening the hunting season. As many as 16 regions have authorised a pre-opening of the hunting season from the very first days of September: Abruzzo, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Lombardia, Marche, Molise, Piemonte, Puglia, Sardegna, Sicilia, Toscana, Trentino and Veneto. In short, we are already in peak season. And among the huntable species is the quail, whose survival is already threatened by poaching and habitat loss. The decision comes after a year in which wildlife has already suffered the effects of drought, floods and wildfires, and against a backdrop in which Ispra's technical opinion carries ever less weight in determining the timing and conditions of hunting, in the face of a growing role for the National Wildlife and Hunting Technical Committee and a recent ruling by the Council of State that has broadened regional authorities' margin to deviate from the Institute's assessments.