Italy is not a shooting range: a complete guide against the hunting bill

What is actually changing

The text makes deep interventions into Law 157 of 1992, the framework law that protects wildlife and regulates hunting. Among the most contested and debated points in the text approved by the Senate:

• Hunting is also presented as a sporting and physical activity with cultural, economic, and social value: a change in language that attempts to normalize killing animals as a practice worthy of promotion.
• The flexibility of hunting calendars is expanded, even in hunting-agritourism estates, albeit with limits introduced during review to respect the sensitive periods provided for by European regulations.
• The regulation of live decoys is addressed, maintaining the use of birds to lure others to the shot while modifying the rules. Behind the word "decoy" are animals kept and used as tools.
• Tools and methods for the selective harvesting of certain ungulates are expanded, including optical and electronic devices within the cases provided for by the text.
• Hunting and hunting-agritourism estates gain more explicit economic weight, strengthening the link between killing, entertainment, and profit.
• Species, periods, controls, territorial boundaries, and penalties are being rewritten: not a touch-up, but a revision of the balance established by the 1992 law.

Has science been heard?

ISPRA, the public institute for environmental protection and research, expressed significant technical concerns during the hearing at the Chamber. According to what was reported by six major associations — ENPA, LAC, LAV, Legambiente, LIPU-BirdLife Italy, and WWF Italy — the substantial changes do not appear to be fully in line with the general objectives of biodiversity and ecosystem protection.

Doubts have also emerged at the European level. During the parliamentary debate, a communication from the European Commission was referenced regarding potential incompatibilities with the Birds Directive, particularly regarding hunting seasons, derogations, live decoys, and the tools used. This is not equivalent to a final ruling against the entire bill, but it makes it even more irresponsible to treat the reform as a race to be finished quickly.

Biodiversity is not a government concession. It is a common good and a constitutional duty.

A political issue, to the core

Article 9 of the Constitution protects the environment, biodiversity, and ecosystems, also in the interest of future generations, and entrusts the State with the power to regulate the ways and forms of animal protection. A majority should start from here. Instead, it starts from the demands of the hunting world and tries to cloak them in reassuring words: balance, tradition, territorial oversight.

But an armed minority cannot dictate an entire country's relationship with forests, the countryside, and wildlife. Those who walk, live in the country, run a sanctuary, protect animals, farm without poisons, or simply wish to cross a path in peace have a right to safety, silence, and living nature.

Calling the act of hitting a sentient being "sport" does not make it any less violent. Calling an expansion of shooting opportunities "management" does not automatically make it scientific. Wildlife control, when truly necessary, must be the last measure of public plans based on data, prevention, and non-cruel methods: not the alibi for transforming every ecological imbalance into a hunting opportunity.

“Where are the animal rights activists?”

Many are there: associations, volunteers, sanctuaries, committees, scientists, and citizens have written, protested, participated in hearings, and denounced the critical issues. It would be false to say that no one has taken action.

The real question is more uncomfortable: where are all the others? Where are the people who love animals but consider politics a dirty business to be avoided? Where are the millions of families who live with a dog or cat when violence strikes an animal that doesn’t have a human name? Where are businesses, public figures, and cultural institutions when taking a stand could cost them consensus?

Animal activism that doesn't disturb those in power becomes moral decoration. Protecting animals also means exposing yourself, voting, choosing where to spend your money, and holding those in power accountable.