Despite our appeals and the technical report submitted by our association to the relevant institutions, reservoirs in mountain areas still lack safety infrastructure. This is the case of the Pizzalto reservoir (Roccaraso), which continues to pose a serious threat to wildlife and humans who frequent the area.
In the days immediately following the discovery of two Marsican bear cubs drowned in the Scanno reservoir in Colle Rotondo, staff and volunteers from Salviamo l’Orso and Rewilding Apennines carried out a series of inspections on numerous similar infrastructures that pose a constant danger to wildlife, domestic animals, and humans: a task of monitoring and supervising the territory that the associations have been carrying out for several years, with the aim of urging institutions and public administrations to take urgent action.
After carrying out the necessary checks to assess the presence and condition of any safety infrastructure—it should be noted that some of these reservoirs lack such infrastructure—Salviamo L’Orso and Rewilding Apennines produced a technical report containing a detailed analysis of the measures that must be urgently implemented to secure the various areas. These include the construction of safety fences, for which not only the specifications but also the technical drawings and some references extrapolated from the scientific literature on the subject are provided.
The document was subsequently shared with all the relevant Forestry Carabinieri stations, as well as with the offices of the Abruzzo Region, which, in turn, adopted it and forwarded it to the relevant authorities, municipalities, regional protected areas, and those responsible for managing the Alto Sangro and Campo Felice-Ovindoli Magnola ski areas.
As we have not yet received eloquent responses from those directly involved, we intend with this statement to reiterate our firm resolve not to let down our guard or ignore a problem that has been dragging on since as many as three bears drowned on a reservoir in Villavallelonga in 2010, which is still to be secured.
For this reason, we recently returned to the area to check in person the progress of the work to secure the reservoir located at PIZZALTO, whose manager, after the reminder also received from the Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park (PNALM), had announced the taking charge of the work in an email sent to Director Luciano Sammarone and, in copy knowledge, to Stefano Orlandini, President of Salviamo L’Orso. In this regard, it is essential to remember that the urgent reminder from PNALM to install the new fence at PIZZALTO, and then in all the basins managed by the Consortium, is due to the presence in the area of a female Marsican brown bear with two cubs only a few months old: a situation that does not allow any carelessness or poorly done or approximate work.
Well, and we write this with regret, great was our disappointment in noting the poor quality of the interventions carried out: despite our technical indications, the existing net was not replaced but roughly patched and, to this day, is still full of holes and unsuitable in size, strength and height to stop a bear.
It is sad to note that, despite the accidents that have already occurred, the managers of the Roccaraso facilities, among other things recently renovated thanks also to substantial public and regional funds, cannot or will not adopt the technical solutions identified by our association, the Park and the Region. An unacceptable and unjustified attitude on the part of an industry that tells itself as the flagship of Abruzzo mountain tourism, a district that invoices millions of euros and promotes, in Italy and abroad, its green and sustainable image, but that in fact does not seem to be willing to invest a penny to minimize the possibility of repeating accidents such as those that have already involved several specimens of Marsican brown bear and several individuals of other species. Not to mention that, thanks precisely to the presence of the Carrito bear, infamous in the news for the death that occurred as a result of an investment, in past years, both Roccaraso and Alto Sangro have enjoyed free publicity whose earnings could be reinvested in securing the territory. A virtuous action that would show, for once, how the public administration cares about the wildlife that continues to attract tourists to the area.
Far from giving up making our voices heard, we also approached the former Alto Sangro Mountain Community, which still seems to be the owner of the Pizzalto reservoir. The commissioner in charge of its liquidation, Dr. Marco Polidoro, after having summoned us together with the plant manager and the director of PNALM for an assessment of the current situation of the basin, practically informed us of his impotence to find any solution to the problem.
In order for those who read us to fully understand the situation described above, we attach to the communiqué the photos taken after the work was completed in Pizzalto, and those of the fence put up along the Autostrada dei Parchi, in the section between Pescina and Cocullo. The latter is exactly the one that PNALM agreed with the highway managers and that we, with some minor modifications resulting from the experiences gained in Canada and the United States in the implementation of fences aimed at preventing bear access, requested for dangerous encroachments.
We conclude this note of ours by noting how from the Scanno Collerotondo reservoir to that of Rocca di Botte, from the Ovindoli – Magnola reservoirs to those of Campo Felice or Pescasseroli, neither reactions nor credible proposals to secure the structures at risk that our volunteers had surveyed have come. A disheartening situation that thwarts our work and confirms the disinterest of those who should act.
We feel disappointed and basically powerless because everything we could do on our own, or in collaboration with PNALM, has been done: in 3 years we have secured more than 20 wells, pools and cavities. To this day there remains work for which funds, permits and authorizations are needed that we are unable to provide and about which widespread disinterest remains. In 12 years, as many as 7 Marsican bears out of a population of just over 60 have drowned in reservoirs similar to those described in the statement. As of today, there are no more excuses: we demand that those affected act promptly or be willing to publicly declare that a bear’s life is worth less than the cost of a fence.
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In the pictures below you can see the difference between the network currently in place in Pizzalto (left) and the one that is up to standard (right).
Rete Pizzalto
