Italian hunting act reform: broad front of politics, science, church and associations

In Italy the political dispute over the reform of hunting act No. 157/1992 is coming to a head.

On 23 June 2026 the Senate passed the bill (DDL 1552) — dubbed the «Sparatutto» (shoot-everything) act by critics and introduced by Fratelli d'Italia parliamentary group leader Lucio Malan — by 80 votes to 56, with two abstentions. Since 7 July 2026 hearings have been under way in the agriculture committee of the Chamber of Deputies, and the deadline for amendments ends on 16 July. Resistance is meanwhile growing on ever more levels simultaneously, now right across the entire political spectrum.

On 7 July 2026 additional political resistance took shape: deputy Michela Vittoria Brambilla (Noi Moderati), president of the parliamentary intergroup for animal rights and environmental protection, appeared before the press together with the associations Enpa, Lipu, WWF, Animalisti Italiani, Oipa, Lac, Gaia and Green Impact. Her core message: Italians did not want to hand the animals over to 500’000 hobby hunters who shoot for pleasure. Surveys cited in the public debate suggest that between 60 and 80 per cent of the Italian population reject an expansion of hobby hunting or would like to keep the existing 1992 legal framework.

What the reform actually changes

The legal text newly enshrines that hobby hunting «contributes to the protection of biodiversity and the ecosystem», thereby casting hobby hunters as «bio-regulators». Critical voices regard this as a semantic ploy: under Italian civil law, wildlife populations belong to the state and are of public interest, and their management should therefore not be left to those who simultaneously hunt these animals.

Central to this is the disempowerment of ISPRA, the state institute for environmental protection and research. Until now its expert opinion was binding for setting the hunting calendars; in future it is to have only an advisory role. This would allow the regions to deviate from scientific recommendations, to lift the 10 February deadline for the end of the season and to extend hunting into the period of bird migration and breeding. The Lipu representative Giovanni Albarella described this point as «the skeleton key to being able to hunt in February and March as well».

Further changes: landowners may no longer refuse hobby hunters access to their land on purely ethical grounds. Among the species newly permitted for hunting are the wild goose and the pigeon; in addition, hunting is to be allowed on state territory at sea. For hunting hoofed game, night vision devices, thermal imaging cameras and silencers are to be permitted, and live decoy birds may in future be kept practically without limit. The wolf is being removed from the list of «specially protected» species, which is intended to facilitate future kill regulations, a step that contradicts recent scientific findings on dealing with predators. Moreover, a new ban is being introduced on «obstructing or delaying» hobby hunting, which is likely to make on-site animal welfare monitoring more difficult.

A rift through its own governing majority

Notably, the resistance is not confined to the left-wing camp. Within the coalition party Forza Italia, an open front of six to seven members of parliament has formed under the leadership of the deputy Rita Dalla Chiesa, who is responsible for animal welfare on the party executive, announcing amendments. In doing so, Dalla Chiesa explicitly invokes the legacy of the party founder Silvio Berlusconi and his long-standing commitment against animal suffering. The well-known right-wing journalist Vittorio Feltri has also voiced criticism, as have parts of the Catholic Church. These fractures within the conservative camp increase the pressure on the government majority to revise the law once more before the final vote.

Now science is against it too

On 8 July 2026, the resistance was reinforced by a weighty voice: the Centro Italiano Studi Ornitologici (CISO), the leading Italian specialist organisation for ornithology, published a technical-scientific opinion that sharply rejects the reform on several points. The initiative follows on from an analysis previously published by the Associazione Teriologica Italiana (ATIt), which deals with mammals and attested that the bill rests on a professionally weak foundation. Both specialist societies have since been officially invited, together with the Società Italiana di Etologia, to the parliamentary hearings, as have Lipu, Legambiente, WWF, Enpa, Lac and Oipa.

CISO criticises in particular the reinterpretation of hobby hunters as «bio-regulators» as a categorical error: a hunting licence certifies suitability for a regulated activity, not training in zoology, ecology or conservation biology. The control of wildlife populations is a public task that must be based on data, monitoring and conservation objectives, not on the sum of private, recreational shooting activity. On the contrary, generalised hunting could disrupt the social structure of animal populations, favour the spread of pathogens and, through lead ammunition, introduce toxic contamination into the environment.

Especially explosive: the draft act does nothing to change the fact that species in poor conservation status may still be hunted, such as the skylark and the rock ptarmigan, both in long-term decline. Figures from ISPRA itself underpin the criticism: 28 per cent of vertebrate species in Italy are considered threatened with extinction, 26 per cent of breeding birds are endangered, and between 2017 and 2023 more than 32 million birds were killed nationwide. Moreover, bird migration is increasingly shifting to earlier calendar phases due to climate change, as data from the citizen-science platform Ornitho.it shows. The CISO is therefore calling on parliament to suspend the legislative process and to resume dialogue with the scientific community.

A shrinking milieu with growing influence

One argument from the critics stands out in particular: the number of hunting licences in Italy has fallen from 738,000 in the 2016/2017 season to just 155,496 in 2026, dropping from 160,055 to this figure within the last two years alone. Hobby hunters thus make up around one per cent of the Italian population, yet this reform grants them far-reaching new powers. Edgar Meyer of Gaia Animali & Ambiente therefore called the act «a slap in the face of science». He also pointed to a rarely discussed issue: according to an analysis by the association Vittime della Caccia, the past twenty years have counted around 1,937 fatal hunting accidents, including 33 cases in which hobby hunters fatally injured themselves and 13 cases involving uninvolved victims.

In a joint letter to Chamber President Lorenzo Fontana, 57 organisations, including Lav, Leal, Legambiente, Lipu BirdLife Italia, Wwf, Enpa, Greenpeace, Oipa, Lndc and Gaia Animali e Ambiente, have also demanded that, alongside the Agriculture Committee, the Environment Committee be included in the deliberations.

Objection from Brussels

The EU Commission is following the process attentively and has submitted several points of criticism to the Italian government, relating above all to the extension of the hunting season beyond 10 February, the weakening of ISPRA's role, and the planned expansion of live decoy birds. Experts see in this a possible violation of the EU Birds Directive, which mandates comprehensive protection during the most sensitive phases of the reproductive cycle. For the rule on live decoy birds, an EU pilot procedure has already been running since 2023, and a formal letter of notice is pending. The Italian President is also examining whether the wording of the law is compatible with Article 9 of the constitution, amended in 2022, which enshrines the protection of the environment, biodiversity, ecosystems and animals as a state objective. As early as spring, Pope Leo XIV also criticised the hunting reform, and animal welfare associations had even earlier warned against the planned reinterpretation of hobby hunters as environmental educators.

Assessment

The Italian case reveals a pattern also familiar from Switzerland: when scientific expert opinions on hunting regulations are downgraded from binding to advisory, decision-making power shifts from professional evidence to political discretion. What is remarkable about the Italian case, however, is how broad the front has now become: it stretches from animal welfare associations through the two leading scientific societies for birds and mammals right into the ranks of the governing majority itself, where members of parliament such as Rita Dalla Chiesa openly take a stand against their own coalition. Brambilla put it in a nutshell: the fight for nature and biodiversity knows no political colour. The course of the debate in Rome is impressively confirming precisely that.