Roccoli - The State controlled bird trapping
For the Italian camouflage hunting hut the use of living decoys is considered essential. For more than a hundred years, birds have been caught with nets in huge trapping installations - called "roccoli" (singular "roccolo"). After bird-trapping was banned in Italy in 1992, the hunters and trappers found themselves with a supply problem for live decoys. Instead of starting a captive breeding programme, the government obtained an exemption to continue operating the roccoli sites. And since private individuals were no longer allowed to trap birds, the state made itself the official operator of the trapping facilities!
"Roccoli" are about the size of a football field and stand on mountain passes and bottlenecks that are important for bird migration. The heart of a roccolo is a mighty beech hedge that surrounds the entire complex. The trees have been cut into round arches over decades, and their interior houses a pergola. Vast nets are stretched here, running up to 2,000 metres depending on the size of the plant! The roccolo offers a large selection of berry-bearing shrubs, waterholes, feeding places and is peppered with live lures. It is common to find more than 50 birds locked in tiny cages to provide a spring-like chorus to attract others of their kind as they migrate through.
In the middle of this trapping installation there is a two-storey tower in which the bird trapper sits. If enough birds have gathered, the poacher will throw pieces of wood into the extensive area. The animals perceive this threat as an approaching birds of prey and rush for protective cover in the beech hedge - where instead they suddenly land in the net. In such a roccolo, several hundred birds can be caught each day.
In the 1970s, more than 2,000 such facilities were still in operation in northern Italy. With the ban on bird-trapping in 1992, almost all Roccoli were closed - but only almost. The regions of Northern Italy - above all Lombardy and Veneto - around 50 roccoli were active each autumn until 2014. The nets were then again stretched in the trapping facilities, and bird trappers were paid by the state to oversee the trapping of the birds. Because the sale of the birds was officially forbidden, they were offered to the hunters free of charge. Every year around 50,000 wild birds wound up in cages as live decoys because of the owners and operators of these sites.
It was not uncommon for inspections to reveal violations - for example, nets were often set at night. Many trappers filled their freezers with robins and finches, which happened to land in the nets and should have been released immediately.
CABS takes the use of the roccoli to the courts
In order to put an end to the ongoing violation of the EU Birds Directive, the Committee Against Bird Slaughter (CABS) filed its first complaint before the Milan Administrative Court in 1994. It confirmed that the exemption for the operation of the roccoli was incompatible with EU law and national laws. The law opening the installations in 1994 was declared unlawful and all installations had to be closed.
In the following years, the governments of Lombardy and Veneto reopened the roccoli every autumn, each time with a new law with the same wording as in 1994. Each time, CABS, together with our partner association LAC, filed official complaints which were always justified. The laws were always passed just before the start of the trapping season, and the legal proceedings usually lasted four weeks, during which the bird trappers could cheerfully trap birds to their hearts content. All in all, we have filed complaints and won more than a dozen times against the opening of the facilities.
This spook was only caused by an intervention of the EU Commission. All roccoli have been closed since 2014. But the governments in Veneto and Lombardy are always trying to allow such trapping through the back door. So far, however, without success!
The last time they failed was in October 2019 with the plan to allow the capture of 12,700 blackbirds, song thrushes, redwing and fieldfare with nets.