The historic center of Massa is transforming into a heated judicial and cultural battlefield which pits the municipal administration and environmentalists against each other. The subject of the dispute is the new management decision of the Environment Sector which approved an extraordinary pigeon containment plan worth 38 thousand euros.
The operational task was entrusted to Lorenzo Tartarini’s FT Falconeria company, called upon to manage the complex bird control operations. The established strategy involves the widespread positioning of trap cages loaded with food bait, the daily inspection of the cages to release any foreign species captured by mistake, up to the subsequent suppression of the specimens and the disposal of the carcasses under the supervision of the ASL veterinary services.
The motivations of the administration
What pushed the municipal council towards the hard line were the continuous reports from residents and the constant degradation of the urban area. According to the Institution’s document, the uncontrolled proliferation of birds entails serious hygienic-sanitary risks, due to the proliferation of parasites such as fleas and ticks carried by feathers and guano. The latter, with its strong acid charge, dramatically accelerates the deterioration of the stone surfaces of historical monuments, compromising the aesthetics of the city. The administration also specifies that the traditional bans on the provision of food and the obligation to clean up nesting sites for private individuals are no longer sufficient to stem the emergency, making the numerical intervention required by the regulation of the Tuscany Region necessary.
Intervention prospects and discussion on the urban future
The operational program prepared by the appointed company provides that the most intense phase of the operations is concentrated in the autumn and winter months, considered operationally more effective. However, the administration has retained the right to anticipate the traps already in the middle of summer in the presence of critical outbreaks. The entire performance of the activities must be carefully reported to the Region, demonstrating that the minimum presence rates of the species have not been exceeded.
The protest of the Lndc and the threat of appealing to the TAR
The response from the animal rights world was obviously not long in coming and came in very harsh tones. The national president of Lndc Animal Protection, Piera Rosati, asked for the immediate blocking of all captures and the complete withdrawal of the self-protection measure, announcing the challenge of the act before the TAR with a request for emergency precautionary suspension.
According to the association’s guide, allocating public resources to physically eliminate animals represents a cruel and ineffective shortcut. Rosati stressed that forced removal does not solve the cause of the problem, as the removed population will be quickly replaced by other specimens. The association demands the immediate publication of scientific censuses, official health data and the priority experimentation of bloodless ecological methods such as sterilization or the accessible closure of nurseries.
Culling is not the solution
Physically eliminating animals is not the solution: pigeons are not waste to be disposed of, but living beings who are victims of urban neglect. Furthermore, science demonstrates that slaughter is completely useless due to the so-called biological vacuum effect, since the suppressed specimens will soon be replaced by other birds attracted by the same food sources. The hope of all of us is that the intervention of the lawyers and the pressure of public opinion can definitively freeze the cages, pushing the city of Massa towards a civil solution far from any logic of demolition.
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