Title of the project

Towards the sustainable hunting harvest of the Italian Hare (Lepus corsicanus) in Sicily. Good practices and monitoring actions.

Description

Project for the monitoring and sustainable harvest of the Italian hare (Lepus corsicanus) in Sicily by training and enabling hunters to the monitoring of the species. After the monitoring of the species the trained hunters will be authorized to the harvest of hare in the areas with good consistence. Every shot specimen will be analyzed for population demography parameters. Shot specimens sites are geo referenced by a smartphone application.

Results

The kilometric index of abundance (IKA) of species in 2017 is remained at a level similar to the one estimated in 1997 (Trocchi et al., 1998) as indicated in the table 1. These data permit to foresee a substantial stability of the population of Lepus corsicanus in Sicily.Parametro 1997 (a) 2017 (b)Lunghezza dei percorsi campione 236,75 km 179,80 kmN. esemplari osservati 75 62IKA 0,36 (d.s. ± 0,28) 0,30 (d.s. ± 0,24)Tab. 1 – Results of the monitoring of Lepus Corsicanus in Sicily in 1997 (a) and in 2017 (b), hunting areas.

Location

Country	Italy
Level	Local, Regional
Municipalities involved	Pollina (Palermo), Montallegro, Cattolica Eraclea, Ribera (Agrigento), Sant'Agata Militello, Militello Rosmarino, Motta d'Affermo, Tusa, Reitano, Pettineo, Mistretta e Castel di Lucio (Messina).
Province(s)	Palermo, Agrigento and Messina
Region	Sicily

Starting date

2017

Habitat Types

Farmland, Scrub/Grassland, Mediterranean scrubland, open grassland, bushy pastures

Protection status of the areas

No protection status, hunting areas (ATC)

Species

Species Caracteristics	Huntable species, Threatened species
Species Type	Mammals (other than large carnivores)
Name(s) of main species	Lepus corsicanus

Conservation action(s)

Management of habitats and wildlife (e.g. conservation and restoration activities), Research and data collection (e.g. monitoring, bag data), Communication and education (for different target audiences e.g. hunters, the wider public), Policy work (e.g. positioning of hunting organisations, demonstrating conservation actions), Study of demographic population status and healt condition of Italian hare (Lepus corsicanus)

Partners

Leading partners

Italian Hunting Federation, University of Palermo, Sicilia Region

Estimation of the budget (total or annual)

30.000 € total budget, totally in charge of FIdC; the use of App XCaccia was free provided by XValue Srl, to promote the app.

Estimation of Human Resources needed

For the preliminary phase (organization of the project, to elaborate and to present it, to complete the courses for training hunters for the monitoring activities, to finish the monitoring activities and to elaborate the data results and to draft the 2017report) were estimated about 150 days/man. In this phase more than 50 hunters were involved, 10 Fidc managers, 3 Fidc experts, 2 XValue Srl experts, 6 experts and managers from Sicilia Region, 1 professor from Palermo University.

Weblinks

https://www.ladeadellacaccia.it/index.php/federcaccia-sicilia-un-progetto-per-riammettere-la-caccia-alla-lepre-italica-nellisola-47100/ http://pti.regione.sicilia.it/portal/page/portal/PIR_PORTALE/PIR_LaStrutturaRegionale/PIR_AssessoratoregionaledelleRisorseAgricoleeAlimentari/PIR_AzForesteDemaniali/PIR_faunaven/PIR_PIR_faunaven_BASE/PIR_ProgettoLepreItalicahttp://www.federcaccia.org/news_show.php?idn=5749