At dawn, when the valleys of Alto Adige are still shrouded in morning fog, a silent team sets out to fight a silent massacre. More than a thousand volunteers – a dense human network made up of hunters, farmers and local collaborators – stand up before the engines of the agricultural machinery start to turn.
The objective of this mobilization is to protect the roe deer cubs from the destructive passage of mechanical mowers, which clean the pastures in these summer weeks. The main danger for animals paradoxically derives from their own self-preservation instinct.
During the very first weeks of life, babies do not run away from danger; on the contrary, they remain completely still on the ground, exploiting the camouflage of their coat to make themselves invisible to natural predators. If this age-old tactic works against the threats of the woods, it unfortunately proves lethal when faced with the advancing blades of agricultural machinery.
@creativenature/123rf.com
Hours of flight and ventilated baskets to ensure the survival of the little ones
To track down the bodies of roe deer immersed in the dense vegetation, simple searches on foot are no longer enough. The real turning point is represented by the use of aerial technology: local hunting reserves have deployed a fleet of 70 drones equipped with very high precision thermal imaging cameras. These aircraft, which have already logged over 5,000 hours of flight time in total, fly over the fields detecting the heat sources of the puppies’ bodies hidden in the tall grass.
Once the monitor signals the presence of an animal, the rescue procedure is activated quickly and meticulously. The volunteers (who together have accumulated over 13,000 hours of field work) delicately pick up the specimen and place it inside a special ventilated basket.
This temporary accommodation serves to guard and protect the roe deer for the entire duration of the grass cutting operations, preventing it from getting back on track. Only when the mowers have finished mowing is the baby safely released to be reunited with its mother. The effectiveness of the system is certified by the data: a similar mobilization made it possible to save as many as 23,000 puppies.
Investments and institutional alliances against death from mowing
Ensuring such aerial coverage requires a significant economic effort, given that the purchase and maintenance of each single drone involves a cost of around 8,000 euros. To support the costs of this organizational machine, the Cassa di Risparmio dell’Alto Adige Foundation has decided to intervene by allocating the necessary funds for the purchase of 33 new technological aircraft. At the same time, the Provincial Council expressed its full support for the cause, unanimously voting on a political motion aimed at financing future purchases of devices for monitoring wildlife.
The entire project moves within a well-defined institutional framework: the Network for the rescue of roe deer – together against death from mowing. This organization was created on the initiative of the Province of Bolzano with the programmatic intent of creating a stable bridge between historically distant worlds, such as the hunting world, the agricultural universe, environmentalist associations and movements for the protection of animals, united towards a single common goal.
You might also be interested in:
