Corncrake Protection Owls – and How We See Them Torrile – Over 600 Heron Nests Adapting to Changes in the Climate

Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli ali Conservation News from Italy • Corncrake protection • Owls – and how we see them • Torrile – over 600 heron nests Autumn 2016 Ali Autumn 2016 • Adapting to changes in the climate Page 1 Who is responsible? Editorial olitics is not a subject for polite company, but PI’m going to delve a little way into politics as it David Lingard affects LIPU in Italy. My annual Council Tax bill tells me that I am paying for a County Council, a District Council and even a Parish Council and, yes, there are other costs as well. The structure of this bureaucracy is not far removed from that of Italy where we can see Regions, Provinces and Communes responsible for providing various services. Many are the countries with financial problems at the Above: The future of conservation everywhere – school children visit moment and even the mildest assessment of Italy’s the LIPU reserve at Torrile, see page 18. Below: A sequence of condition would say that it is far from healthy – and images showing the erection of an information panel at the Boverio the Italian national government is trying to improve reedbed near Milan. Our help with its purchase is shown in the last matters by cutting costs. It would like to remove picture. the whole local government layer at provincial level saying that this would improve efficiency and make great savings in expenditure. The problem for us is that the Raptor Recovery Centres operated and managed by LIPU are almost all funded by the province in which they are located – and the province no longer has any money. LIPU finds itself with a difficult decision – does it close the centres, or divert precious funds to keeping them open and continuing an operation which has always been financed with public funds. It is another example, and there are many more around Europe, of government priorities pushing anything to do with the environment to the very bottom of the list and it is difficult to see how this can be reversed. Over many years we have helped the Ali Autumn 2016 Ali Autumn 2016 Page 2 aPge 3 Recovery Centres with funds to buy the medicines So what was happening? The mystery was soon and equipment needed for their important day to day resolved. The cause of the misunderstanding was work and we will continue to do so. However, this a satirical article that had appeared in a prominent does not relieve the government of Italy at national, national newspaper. The article stated that according regional or provincial level of its responsibility to to LIPU, ‘the campaign of denigration against owls is protect the wild creatures entrusted to its care. threatening the existence of the Eagle Owl, which is quite widespread in Italy.’ I personally answered our members, explaining that the piece was only meant as a joke. However, that was not the end of it. The matter has resurfaced quite OWLS, HAWKS, DOVES & CO. often since, and came to the forefront once again a few days prior to this article with the escalation of by Danilo Selvaggi, Director General the political controversy regarding owls – a sign that, after all, the matter of ‘owl defamation’ must really Birds in our everyday language – between be leading to a certain level of aversion or at least to cliché, legend, and truth. some significant reaction. ome time ago, one of our members sent us an Can a simple figure of speech be so worrisome? Se-mail in which he politely expressed his doubts Should the use or the excessive use of such about LIPU’s protests at Palazzo Chigi (the official metaphors be censured? Is it ‘mis-education’? Can it residence of the Italian Prime Minister) against the lead to real problems for animals? Above all, what are Prime Minister’s constant use of the owl metaphor, the cultural roots behind it? which sees these birds as harbingers of bad luck. According to the member in question, although his The Owl in Politics use of the metaphor was questionable, this figure of speech is simply a common idiom on which no time The owl metaphor is a recurring theme in Italian should be wasted. Soon after, we received another politics, expressing the divide between two e-mail, followed by another, and one more – but this apparently opposite approaches: on the one hand, the time thanking LIPU for the stance taken and asking reformers who seek – and trust in – change; on the us not to give up. other, the ‘owls’, accused of pessimism and defeatism . The ‘owls’ don’t believe in the future, they rail Stop Denigrating against it, opposing any initiative that may bring about change. In one word, they are ‘gufano’ (from I didn’t understand. LIPU was not protesting – that gufo, the Italian for owl) – that is, they don’t trust in is, not in those days and not for those reasons, so things and even act so that certain things fail. neither compliments nor criticism were founded. Ali Autumn 2016 Ali Autumn 2016 Page 4 Page 5 The ‘owls’ react to these accusations by highlighting also intriguing. Who could have done such a thing? It all the positive features of these nocturnal birds was only years later that I understood the meaning of of prey to which they are compared. ‘You call us that gesture, and discovered that the act of crucifying “owls”?’ they say. ‘We’re happy with the comparison. that owl was not a gesture of sudden, gratuitous We know that owls are outstanding animals: they can cruelty but a precise act against ‘evil’: a practice that move around in the dark and they have very acute had been common in many ancient cultures and senses; they are the very best example of what is whose significance had clearly crossed time to reach needed in these dark and difficult times in which we us. Acts of pure superstition fed by so many stories, live. Owls in politics represent the quest for the right beliefs and tales that give these acts such credence skills; among them, a critical sense and the lucidity that they lead to real bloodshed, and the suffering of needed to see clearly, even – or especially – at night. real wolves, vultures, black cats and owls. Wolves are Owls excel at this.’ evil. Owls are evil. Watch out! Evil in Mythology ‘Good’ in Mythology Both negative and positive views stem from the However, as we have already mentioned, there image of owls presented in mythology, from those exists an opposite tradition that sees owls as beliefs that – across space and time – have reached positive animals; symbols of wisdom and know- us, depicting these nocturnal birds of prey (both owls how; denoting meditation and used to represent and little owls) either as harbingers of evil, bad luck monasteries; emblems of judgement and deep and misfortune, or as good, positive and wise birds. knowledge. ‘The eye of the Little Owl shines in the dark, like the glory of knowledge shines among Undoubtedly, the first interpretation is the most common people’; ‘Wise and constant like an owl’, widespread from Asia to Africa, passing through ‘The owl knows and keeps quiet’ – just some of Europe; the idea that owls are harbingers of evil is the common sayings to mention owls. The Native certainly linked to their nocturnal and solitary habits, American peoples venerated owls, believing them their silent, ghost-like flight, and their loud hoots in to be real guides to the human journey, almost as the night, all of which must have been unsettling for if to say that these birds’ capacity to see ancient peoples and have become indivisible with the in the dimmest light is the biggest gift fears and worries that tormented them. Inhabitants of that any man could wish for. Finding the Kingdom of the Night, of the non-visible realm, our way when the sun is shining or owls appear as the chief of the unknown, of magic, being optimistic when life smiles threats and even as demons. One morning, when I at us is easy; it is in the darkness was a child, I found an owl crucified on the football of hardship that the real value of field where I used to spend my summer days. Its a man can be measured. A man wings were open in a cross shape and had been nailed who, like an owl, can navigate in the onto an old wooden door. It was quite shocking, but darkness is a genuine person. Ali Autumn 2016 Ali Autumn 2016 Page 6 Page 7 Doves Save Us from World Wars Is the Crow a Bird of Prey? For quite some time, and before the owl metaphor Another interesting historical episode, this time became so popular, Italian politics was dominated by exclusively Italian, employed yet another bird another bird-related image, that of hawks and doves. metaphor. In 1989, a magistrate from the Palermo This image sought to contrast those in favour of public prosecutor’s office was accused – unfairly, as (doves) and against (hawks) entering into dialogue was later proved – of having defamed his colleagues with their opponent. To ‘hawks’, politics is about Ayala, Giammanco, and Giovanni Falcone using attacking, being a predator, aggressive fighting and anonymous letters. Everyone spoke of a ‘crow’, politically suppressing the enemy. For ‘doves’, on the the crow in the Palermo public prosecutor’s office. other hand, political dialogue represents the quest for But the reasons behind this choice of metaphor are a common solution. unclear. Why is there a folk belief that crows are unfair, untrustworthy birds that plot and deceive? The metaphor of doves and hawks has recent and quite dramatic origins.

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