On the island of Giglio, in the Grosseto area, there are no longer mouflons. Those specimens that years ago were brought - apparently - from Sardinia were killed two years after the agreement signed with LAV and WWF. «There should no longer be any mouflon specimens on the island» says the park authority but «to have absolute certainty and to certify it, monitoring will have to continue with periodic inspections throughout 2024».

The Giglio mouflons had been defined by the Park as a "harmful hybrid", dangerous for biodiversity.

The project «was closed with 35 mouflons killed (40%) and 52 captured, sterilized and transferred (60)».

«It should be underlined - we read in a note from the Park - how the capture operations were made more difficult and less effective by numerous disturbance actions. The operators were followed and filmed while they worked and there were numerous actions of sabotage, damage and even theft of the equipment used for captures, all regularly reported. There was a frantic desire to photograph and film the captured animals, even when they were inside transport crates loaded onto transfer vehicles, creating unnecessary stress for the animals. For this reason the Park was forced to ask for the collaboration of the Carabinieri who provided military vehicles and also "escorted" part of the transfer."

(Unioneonline/ss)

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