The lessons you can learn from animal poo on holiday in Italy
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Loading... - Amy DeRose
- 11 Oct 2022
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‘This is wolf scat,” said wildlife guide Andrea De Angelis, examining the evidence left on the hiking trail by Italy’s unexpected apex predator. Not for the first time I was reminded just how excited naturalists get about such deposits. “It’s a few days old and matted with coarse black hairs,” Andrea enthused, “probably from a wild boar the wolf has eaten – and it’s full of pathogens that you might inhale, so stand back.” It was the closest I would come to seeing a wolf on Exodus Travels’ six-day Rewilding the Apennines adventure, but luckily there is more to the experience than spotting A-list animals – or their droppings.
On a vertiginous shale slope above the small town of Pettorano Sul Gizio, I had my first taste of what rewilding entails. Armed with heavy-duty secateurs and wearing safety goggles, I stumbled, slid and sweated for an hour with other volunteers to remove strands of barbed wire from the hillside, rendering it safe for wildlife. Though not part of the holiday, it gave me an insight into just how hard and dangerous the work can be.
Located between the region’s two great national parks – Majella to the north-east and Abruzzo (officially Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise) to the south-west – tiny Pettorano finds itself the unlikely star of the rewilding effort. Both parks are home to Apennine wolves, red and roe deer, chamois, pine martens, golden eagles, griffon vultures and rare Marsican brown bears (smaller and less aggressive than grizzlies), safe within those protected areas. Flanking Pettorano is the Regional Nature Reserve of Monte Genzana and Alto Gizio, one of five areas in transition that will serve as “coexistence corridors” between the parks. By rewilding these and educating the community about the benefits, the aim is to expand the territory into which wildlife can disperse while at the same time minimising conflict with humans.
Protecting the animals
Pettorano is no stranger to such conflicts. In 2014, a Marsican brown bear was found dead outside the town, shot by a local man after weeks of rumours about four of the animals plundering chicken coops, beehives and orchards. The farmer was fined (the species is legally protected) and initiatives since have focused on depriving bears of “easy food” by erecting electrified fences around hives and chicken runs, fitting bear-proof locks to organic waste bins, and encouraging growers of apples, pears and cherries to pick their crop early and remove any fallen fruit, giving bears less of an incentive to forage in areas occupied by humans. Read More...
