Lake Garda Surveillance Gets a Boost with New Fishery Patrol Vessel
Enhanced “the fleet” for surveillance on Lake Garda regarding fishing and hunting. The new motorboat, recently purchased by the Provincial Administration, was officially introduced yesterday morning; it replaces the old motorboat, which was sold for 20 million euros, bringing the cost of the new Rio 650 Fish down to 107 million euros. Currently, the fauna and environmental department has two motorboats and a rubber boat.
“An indispensable purchase“, highlighted provincial councilor for ecology and the environment Camillo Pilati, “to ensure better and more effective control activities on the lake, especially considering that fishing is almost entirely carried out by boat by both amateur and professional fishermen.”
The latter, along the Veronese shore of Garda, number 60 and capture an average of more than 300 tons of high-value fish each year, including coregone-lavarello, sardine, osprey, pike, perch, trout, tench, eel, and even carpione.
Alongside the modernization of the vessels, the surveillance service has also been reorganized with the aim, as clarified by Councilor Pilati, of “better control of fishing and hunting“, as well as a more significant presence of agents on the territory. This service is now performed by two full-time guards, supported during periods of peak fishing activity—both professional and recreational—or during the breeding seasons of the most important fish species, by other provincial police officers.
Thus, besides the two guards with nautical licenses (Alberto Piazzi and Vittorio Daldosso), during the spawning periods of coregone and carpione (mid-December to mid-February); pike (mid-February to mid-March); perch (mid-April to mid-May); and alborella, sardella, and carpione (mid-May to late August), additional guards, up to a maximum of four, will periodically be available for about seven months a year.
The baptism of the new nautical vessel also served as an occasion for the lake public administrators to carry out a review of the fish hatchery located in San Pietro, in the municipal territory of Bardolino, which has been abandoned for years.
“In a year and a half, at most two“, promised Councilor Pilati, “it will be completely renovated with the construction of a new hatchery and laboratory. Financial resources are available, and therefore work will commence as soon as the feasibility study is complete.”
Recently acquired by the Provincial Administration for 770 million euros from Veneto Agricoltura, a regional entity, the complex situated on the lakeshore includes a building with a single floor and a shed with disused equipment, which can be recovered for artificial insemination and the breeding of juvenile and fingerling fish characteristic of Garda.
“Especially with the possibility“, pointed out the Province’s ichthyologist Ivano Confortini, “to restart experimentation and provide educational and cultural functions with guided visits to the hatchery.”
At the presentation event for the new nautical vessel, alongside representatives from the public administrations of Bardolino, Lazise, and Peschiera, were Garda Mayor Giorgio Comencini, the new official of the fauna and environmental sector Gabriella Sterzi, and provincial councilor Davide Bandinelli, who assured the province’s contribution to the Cooperative among Fishermen of Garda.