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HUNTING

Reader question: What are the rules around hunting in Italy?

Hunting season is underway in Italy. If you live in the Italian countryside, knowing the law can help you protect your rights and safety.

Published: 7 November 2023 15:15 CET
Updated: 27 November 2023 16:16 CET
Reader question: What are the rules around hunting in Italy?
Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Question: ‘Hunting season is on in Italy, and where we live we seem to be surrounded by hunters firing away at dawn and again at dusk.

“What are the rules around hunting in Italy, and what measures can a home owner take to prevent hunters from getting too close or disregarding what the law says?”

Anyone who spends much time in the Italian countryside in autumn and winter will quickly get used to the sound of gunshots, as hunting is a popular pastime in many rural areas.

Italy’s hunting season technically runs from the third weekend in September until January 31st, but 16 regions also have a ‘pre-opening’ season, starting from the first weekend in September, when certain species of birds can be hunted.

Often, the noise of shooters taking aim at wild boar will do no more than disturb your morning peace; but at worst, it can make you fear for your safety and that of any pets or livestock.

And it’s not unreasonable to worry: according to data from Italy’s Hunting Victims Association, 19 people were killed and 60 injured in the 2022-2023 hunting season.

READ ALSO: How dangerous is the Italian countryside during hunting season?

Unfortunately, private land isn’t automatically legally protected from hunters, as current Italian law requires landowners to erect a 120cm-high fence all around the property, or a watercourse at least 3 metres wide and 1 metre deep, if they want hunters to stay away.

Italy does, however, have national legislation that lays out some clear rules and restrictions around hunting.

Hunters must keep at least 100m away from buildings, stables and agricultural machinery in operation and 50m away from roads and railways, and must be at least 150m away when shooting in their direction.

The activity is prohibited in public and private parks and gardens, national and regional parks and nature reserves, land where sporting activities are carried out, and farmyards.

Hunting is permitted from one hour before sunrise until sunset. It can be carried out no more than three days a week, and is completely banned on Tuesdays and Fridays.

National legislation regulates hunting in Italy.

National legislation regulates hunting in Italy. Photo by Paul Einerhand on Unsplash

Hunters must have a valid firearms license from their regional government, which they can only receive upon passing a rigourous exam.

Separately, Article 703 of Italy’s Penal Code bans the use of firearms in the vicinity of inhabited areas and public roads, and Article 659 enshrines people’s right to rest and work without disturbance.

It’s one thing for a law to exist, however, and another matter to get it enforced.

More than one grassroots organisation has sprung up in Italy with the aim of cracking down on hunters who violate the rules with apparent impunity.

Caccia Il Cacciatore (‘Hunt the Hunter’) says its members in towns and villages around Rome have had success in passing local ordinances banning hunting altogether in certain areas.

This does away with the need to demonstrate someone is in violation of specific rules based on location, distance or time of day, which can be hard to prove in practice.

The organisation provides a step-by-step guide as well as templates for filing formal complaints.

For this kind of local initiative to work, of course, you’ll need to drum up enough support from your neighbours to convince your mayor to issue this kind of blanket ban.

Just one of many reasons why it’s worth integrating into your local community as a foreigner in Italy.

 

Member comments

  2. There’s a bit of an anti-hunting theme in the article. Some more information regarding responsible hunting such as best regions for certain game, hunting clubs, firearms acquisition and transport would be nice. Hunting helps keep some balance with nature such as culling invasive wild boar. Most also enjoy the food produced from the harvest of wild game. And much like the balance of nature, more information on how to responsibly balance hunting with community quality of life would be helpful.

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For members

ROME

Reader question: How common is air conditioning in Rome apartments?

With summer at the Eternal City's doors and temperatures on the rise, one reader asks: how easy is it to find an apartment in Rome with air conditioning?

Published: 13 June 2024 12:48 CEST
Updated: 16 June 2024 08:21 CEST
Reader question: How common is air conditioning in Rome apartments?

Question: ‘I’m thinking of moving to Rome next year. With the effects of climate change and summers getting hotter, are air conditioners becoming more common in homes? If so, how does that work with the peculiar Italian system of consumption of electricity?”

Last summer was a scorcher in Italy, and Rome last July registered its hottest temperature since records began, at 41.8 degrees Celsius.

Yet despite warnings from Italian health authorities to drink water and stay inside, one object was missing from most homes in the capital: an air-conditioning unit.

READ MORE: Seven tips for surviving (and enjoying) Rome in summer

Air conditioning is far from guaranteed in apartments in Italy in general: partly because of the amount of energy they use, but there’s a long-standing fear of cold air (colpo d’aria) and a belief that if you stand near cold currents, you will be ill.

While this may be true for some people, soaring temperatures suggest this fear will increasingly be put to rest – and the most recent data suggests that it somewhat has.

A growing number of homeowners are looking at installing air-conditioning units in Lazio, the region where Rome sits, with a six percent rise in enquiries from 2021 to 2022.

This increase was attributed to the launch of Italy’s bonus condizionatori, a state incentive launched in 2022 for the purchase of more efficient AC units, as well as to rising temperatures.

The trend seems to be nationwide, with certain types of air conditioning units seeing a 27.9 percent increase in the first half of last year, according to association Assoclima.

READ ALSO: What are the rules for installing air conditioning in your Italian home?

However, this doesn’t mean it’s getting much easier to find an apartment with air conditioning: in Rome, their absence is still all too apparent

If you go into most restaurants, particularly outside the city centre, you will not find it. If you are going on holiday, a lot of places advertise having AC when perhaps it should be a given.

And if you’re renting or buying a property, chances are you’ll be advised to buy a fan and close the shutters on the windows during midday.

Finding an apartment with air conditioning in Rome is possible, but still a rarity. Real-estate search portal Idealista recently surveyed the percentage of properties up for rent or sale in each city which had air-conditioning. Rome did not even make the top 20.

What’s more, it’s hard to know what will happen when air conditioning becomes more common in Rome. There were blackouts last summer in the Rome quarters of Torpignattara, Alessandrino, and Marconi after people turned up their air conditioners in an attempt to keep cool.

Rome isn’t the only part of Italy where this happens: widespread blackouts in Milan in 2022 were blamed on soaring air conditioner use amid extreme heat.

There’s also the fact that standard household power capacity in Italy is set at 3.3 KW (3,300 Watts), which many find is too low to run more than one power-hungry appliance at a time. This limit can be increased by your electricity provider, for a fee, but the expense is often prohibitive.

For all these reasons, air conditioning is still not common in Rome, but it is on the rise. If it’s a must-have for you it’s always necessary to double-check before leasing anywhere.

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