Jolanda di Savoia of Italy (AP) – An unusual pest is crops and angry farmers in northeast Italy: flamingos.
These relatively new groups of immigrants have set the sight of hunger on flooded fields that produce rice for risotto in the province of Ferrara between Venice and Ravenna. Long-legged birds are not interested in seedlings. Instead, flamingos use their weaving feet to stir up soil, algae or insects in shallow water.
Rice is collateral damage.
Farmers have begun patrolling day and night to scare off birds. They honked their horns, exploded barrels, and even shot lightning flying small gas cannons. Most of the time, the noise will only cause them to fly to another nearby rice field to trample under their feet.
Local grower Enrico Fabbri said he was frustrated after seeing as much as 90% of production losses in some of his growing areas.
Fabbri, 63, said next to a Padis in the suburb of Jolanda Di Savoia: “These are new things that have never happened.” Then, just as the crops start to grow, it’s like letting newborns be taken away. This is the feeling. ”
The flamingos appear to come from their previous nesting ground, located in the nearby Comacchio valley, with the coast’s reserves (Italy’s longest PO river) flowing into the Adriatic Sea.
Roberto Tinarelli, president of the Emilia-Romagna Ornodist, said the birds have been there since 2000 since 2000.
Previously, they had been confined to lakes in North Africa, part of Spain and 61-year-old Tinarelli in the University of California, France, said next to a pond in a small town in Bentivolgio, near Bologna.
There is no research to determine why these flamingos began looking for food inland, and from late spring to early summer, farmers flooded their fields as a means of sprouting newly planted rice seeds. Flamingos are the threat until the carrier drains a few weeks later.
“Obviously, we’re looking for answers to people who have to solve this problem. It’s all beautiful from an environmental standpoint, but we have to remember that rice cultivation is one of the most expensive and widest crops,” said Massimo Piva, 57, vice president of scarecrow and local farmers.
“They are beautiful animals, and that’s how they move and behave, but the problem is trying to limit their presence as much as possible,” Piva said.
Speaking linguist Tinarelli has proposed several solutions to defend a more humane and more effective burn with the fanatical efforts currently used: Padies with tall trees or hedges around, and even better, lower the water level of Padies with fresh plants to 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm) (5 and 10 cm) (5 and 10 cm) instead of 12 inches.
“It’s enough to make rice grow, but it’s definitely less attractive to flamingos, which have to splash out in the water,” he said.
