Ferrara, August 29, 2026 – “Since 2021 until today, 60,000 coypus have been shot with a .22 caliber rifle in 59 areas of the province,” the numbers are listed by Roberta Artioli, commander of the provincial police of Ferrara. A response to the increasingly strong alarm raised by farmers’ associations, to the SOS from the citizens of Goro who in recent days saw the embankment along the Canalbianco give way, a sea of water pouring into the canals, the town less than two hundred meters away. The risk of seeing that river of water arrive in the streets, the sewers overwhelmed by the wave coming from the Canalbianco.
A bit of luck, the canals were dry and allowed the water to drain. A bit of perfect timing by the consortium’s bulldozers that moved quickly, the embankment broke during the night. It could have gone very differently. Separating the town is a piece of countryside, uncultivated fields that were partially flooded, the blue of the water among the grass.
Fingers pointed at the coypus that burrowed through the embankments, tunnels, dens. And the bank gave way.
This is the belief of Fausto Gianella, councilor of Brothers of Italy in the Emilia Romagna Region, fisherman, who raised the alarm. Danilo Treossi, provincial president of Arci Caccia Ferrara, a deep connoisseur of our province. “The bank gave way because of the coypus.”
Alberto Pelacchi, provincial president of Enalcaccia, with a strong background in environment and territory, is convinced. “There is no doubt,” he says. And he calls for experimentation with the use of air rifles to shoot the rodents. “It is silent, very effective, it could be the right way,” he says. Just as the .22 caliber rifle is the right way, which has been adopted both by teams operating in the countryside and by individual hunters. A series of tools, one goal. Stop the colonization of coypus.
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