In Europe we still have several mountain and wilderness
areas where predators and shepherds roam the land. The highest concentration
and core population of European predators can be found in The Romanian
Carpathians. Through the ages we humans tried to exterminate all large
predators for many foolish reasons and for sure that was and is a very big
mistake.
Large predators vanished in a lot of European countries and
now remain only in remote mountainous wilderness areas. Eastern Europe still
houses good large predator populations. The communist and socialist regimes in
various eastern European countries have proven to be (more) ideal for nature
and ecosystems. Due to the eastern European political regimes mankind didn’t
evolve and destroy with the same destructive speed as in western Europe.
The decreasing and/or disappearing of large predators also
happened in Italy. Breathtaking and important nature areas like the Abruzzese
mountain region lost most or all of their key species: large predators. The
shepherds roaming these lands slowly started to adapt to the new situation.
With their enemies decreased in numbers, or gone, they could keep more livestock to reach higher
production numbers and profits. However those large herds are hard to control
and even harder to keep grouped together. A solution was at hand: a different
kind of dog, a herding dog. And so it happened that a lot of shepherds
exchanged their (white) guardian dogs for national and international herding
dogs.
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Abruzzese mountains |
All those international efforts resulted in a comeback of
large predators in various regions. A thing that’s still going on today. Also
the Abruzzese mountain region saw their key species return and of course it
didn’t take long before problems (conflicts) occurred. The large herds of sheep
without the protection of good guardian dogs were just too easy for the
opportunistic predators. The white dogs that once were wide spread among
shepherds in the Abruzzese region were needed again. But only a few of them
remained.
A group of devoted conservationists and canine specialists
joined forces in 2005 to find and
register all remaining (working) white Abruzzese dogs. They established the Associazione Cane da Gregge Abruzzese. And they succeeded in their mission while having many roadblocks in their way, for example the heavy earthquakes that hit the (l’Aquila) region and the commercializing of the Abruzzese Shepherd Dog that has many names and/or varieties now a days. However in the wilderness of the Abruzzese mountains only the real, working type dogs were needed.
register all remaining (working) white Abruzzese dogs. They established the Associazione Cane da Gregge Abruzzese. And they succeeded in their mission while having many roadblocks in their way, for example the heavy earthquakes that hit the (l’Aquila) region and the commercializing of the Abruzzese Shepherd Dog that has many names and/or varieties now a days. However in the wilderness of the Abruzzese mountains only the real, working type dogs were needed.