Historical note on the presence of wild boars along the Adige

Appendix.

Historical Note.

In an instruction dated February 24, 1620, issued under the Tyrolean sovereign Archduke Leopold to the forest administrator on the Adige, in the Burggrafenamt and in Vinschgau, Wolfgang Franzin, the latter was commissioned, among other things, to investigate often throughout the year, partly himself and partly through the forest keepers, how many wild boars and other game were present along the Adige, and whenever he deemed it necessary to hunt, to report it to the chief huntsman. Thus, at the beginning of the 17th century, there were still wild boars along the Adige. The same instruction proves that game laws were still very strict at that time. High hunting was strictly forbidden to everyone, even to the nobility, and lower hunting, the Reisgejaid, was permitted only to the nobility, and even to them only with dogs that posed no danger to larger game. From this it can be surmised that there were still wild boars in considerable numbers at that time, and that they may have survived for a long time after. Nowadays, this animal species has not been found in the entire country for time immemorial. It would be of some importance for the cultural history of the region to investigate up to what period traces of it can still be found, and since when it is to be considered completely disappeared from the land.