Referendum on bears and wolves in Trentino, almost 100% of residents in Val di Sole find them dangerous. What happens now?

Bears do not change their status as protected animals. This assumption should be more certain than ever, even if the referendum launched by the Committee “Together for Andrea Papi” had a very specific outcome: 98.58% of the inhabitants of the 13 Municipalities of Trentino said they were worried about the presence of large carnivores.

A big deal, therefore, because – even if a “simple” local consultation cannot change the European and national legislation that gives bears and wolves maximum protection – the numbers speak clearly: more than 7,700 people voted against the presence of bears and wolves in Val di Sole. The referendum exceeded 63% and 98.58% of voters expressed the same opinion. There were 12,477 people entitled to vote.

What will happen now?

The referendum question

First of all, it must be said that this referendum comes 25 years after the start of the repopulation of the brown bear in the woods of Trentino with the Life Ursus project. After the first attacks by bears on people, however, the common feeling has changed considerably and public opinion has almost barricaded itself behind a fear that is too often unfounded.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was undoubtedly the death of Andrea Papi, the 26-year-old runner who in 2023 was attacked and killed by a bear identified as JJ4, mother Gaia.

Since then it has been a crescendo of bad moods, to the sound of things ordinances And measures of captures, killings or fences, in the perception of a danger that is decidedly shared (and fomented) among the inhabitants of a limited territory. From here, the “Together for Andrea Papi” Committee collected over 6 thousand signatures in Val di Sole in order to promote the popular consultation with an almost predictable outcome.

The question posed was:

Do you believe that the presence of bears and wolves in densely populated areas such as Val di Sole, Val di Pejo and Val di Rabbi is a danger to safety, harmful to the economy and to the protection of customs, habits and traditions local?

7,731 citizens said yes, only 111 no and 18 blank ballots.

Let’s reiterate: it is, more than a referendum, a consultation aimed at testing public opinion’s sensitivity to the issue (the polls were not needed to do this…).

This is why the response should lead provincial, national and European politics to deal with the request for help from the population of Val di Sole, says the President of the Val di Sole Community, Lorenzo Cicolini, who would like a review of the management of the project Life Ursus.

But here are the animal rights activists:

The sham “consultation” will not produce any legal consequences, since it had a purely consultative nature and involved a few thousand people – say ENPA. In short, the result of the scrutiny cannot be “generalized” in any way, but must necessarily be limited to just over half of the residents of Val di Sole, whose ursophobic orientation was already widely known.

Precisely for this reason the “call to the polls” had a clear ideological connotation, evident from the misleading formulation of the pseudo-referendum question, and had as its sole objective that of fueling anti-plantigrade and anti-wolf propaganda

And they conclude from LAV:

If citizens want greater security, instead of continuing to be fooled by Fugatti, who has found an electoral gold mine in the bear issue, they would do better to turn to science, acquiring all the necessary and useful information to be able to continue to enjoy of the territory in complete tranquility, aware of the fact that bears and wolves will continue to be their neighbors.

If this question had been asked at a national level, we conclude and we bet our heads on it, it would have had a diametrically opposite outcome.