At the beginning of 19th century Alpine ibex was on the edge of extinction, surviving only with a small population, probably of less than 100 individuals, around the Grivola massif, which is included in what today is the Gran Paradiso National Park (north-west Italian Alps). The first call for awareness for the risk of extinction also of this last remnant ibex population, came from the forest inspector of Gressoney (Aosta Valley), Joseph Zumstein, who wrote a letter to the Academy of Sciences of Turin in 1820, proposing the ban of ibex hunting. The Academy thus commissioned a study to Giacinto Carena and to the famous Italian zoologist Franco Andrea Bonelli in order to assess the situation and propose conservation measures (Passerin d'EntrËves, 2000). As a consequence, on 21st September 1821, the knight Thaon di Revel, Count of Pralungo, General Lieutenant of the King of the Reign of Sardinia (which included the Aosta Valley), issued the first edict for the complete protection of Alpine ibex in the whole kingdom. Poachers were punished with nine days of prison and a fine.

Complete protection to the species was confirmed by king Carlo Alberto di Savoia in 1836 with a new royal hunting edict. Enforcement of these protection laws was however probably poor, as no specialised gamekeepers had been designated to patrol the area inhabited by the last surviving Alpine ibex population. Actually, a unit of "Dragoni guardacaccia" (gamekeeper dragoons) had been created by the Dukes of Savoia as early as 1680 (Passerin d'EntrËves, 2000). Their activity was however limited to the royal hunting reserves, among which, the mountainous areas inhabited by Alpine ibex, were not yet part.
It was only in 1856, that king Vittorio Emanuele II reserved for himself the hunting rights in the areas inhabited by the last Alpine ibex, creating thus the royal hunting districts of Ceresole and Aosta, surrounding the Gran Paradiso massif. In order to prevent poaching, a unit of royal gamekeepers was soon created, all coming from local villages and choosing them "...fra il fior fior di bracconieri" ("among the very best of the poachers"; Leopoldo Guala, Comandant of the Aosta hunting district in about 1900, cited in Passerin d'EntrËves, 2000 p.73).

King Vittorio Emanuele II (in the middle with thedogs) in his hunting camp of Orvielle (1869 ca.).
Photo credit: Museo Nazionale della Montagna ìDuca degli Abruzziî, Torino.

Actually, the king's motivation for this act was not conservation concerns, but his great hunting passion; and the species he was most eager to hunt was in fact Alpine ibex. From 1856 to 1913, Vittorio Emanuele II first, and then his successors on the throne, Umberto I and Vittorio Emanuele III, organised each summer Alpine ibex hunts for themselves and their friends (Passerin d'EntrËves, 2000). The kings of Italy invested a lot of money in these royal hunts, building "royal trails" in order to easily access the hunting grounds with horses and mules, "Case di caccia" ("Hunt houses") up to 2500 m a.s.l. for themselves and the gamekeepers, and employing hundreds of people during each hunt to push the animals in direction of the hides where the hunters were waiting for their preys. During each hunt up to 53 ibex were killed (Passerin d'EntrËves, 2000).

Hundreds of people were employed for each hunt.
Photo credit: Archivio foto PNGP

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King Umbero I during an Alpine ibex hunt in Orvielle (1899 ca)
Photo credit: Museo Nazionale della Montagna ìDuca degli Abruzziî, Torino.

Despite this hunting activity, thanks to the strict control of poaching by the royal gamekeepers, the population of Alpine ibex in the Gran Paradiso area recovered rapidly. The yearly censuses, started in 1877 and conducted by the royal gamekeepers, recorded a constant increase in the total numbers of Alpine ibex going from 790 individuals, counted in 1879 up to 2673 in 1905 (data from: Passerin d'EntrËves, 2000). On 8th August 1913, king Vittorio Emanuele III did his last Alpine ibex hunt and thus put an end to the royal hunts in the Gran Paradiso area (Tibaldi, 1913). In 1919, the king gave his disponibility to donate his royal hunting reserves to the Italian state in order to create the first Italian national park: the Gran Paradiso National Park, eventually founded in 1922.

Gamekeepers of the Royal hunting reserve of Gran Paradiso
Photo credit: Archivio foto PNGP

Alpine ibex seemed thus safe from extinction at the beginning of the 20th century, but still it was distributed in only one single closed population around the Gran Paradiso massif, and thus potentially at risk of eventual catastrophic events such as epidemics. The first attempts to reintroduce the species in other reserves were started in 1862, when Vittorio Emanuele II began to keep and tried to breed some Alpine ibex and some crossbreeds with domestic goats in his Royal park della Mandria, near Turin (Aghemo di Perno, 1910; Maschietti et al. 1988). Other reintroduction attempts were done in Switzerland, first in 1879 near Arosa and then in 1887 near Fillisur (Canton Graubunden), using crossbreds with domestic goats (Davats, 1891 in Giacometti, 1988). Apparently, also the emperor Franz-Joseph tried to reintroduce, on the Austrian mountains, some Alpine ibex obtained from the Gran Paradiso royal hunting reserve (Couturier, 1962). All these early reintroduction projects were however unsuccessful, and we will have to wait the beginning of the 20th century to see again Alpine ibex on other alpine meadows than those under the shadow of Gran Paradiso.

Ironically, a primary role in the first successful re-introductions, was actually played by poachers, who had contributed largely to the near extinction of the species in the centuries before. Since the times of Vittorio Emanuele II, in the middle of 19th century, local poachers used to live-capture Alpine ibex kids in the Gran Paradiso royal hunting reserves, in order to sell them for good money in Switzerland, as again reported by Leopoldo Guala, Commandant of the Aosta hunting district at the beginning of 1900 (cited in Passerin d'EntrËves, 2000 p.73): "...ed anche negli ultimi anni di Regno del compianto Vittorio Emanuele II esercitandosi il commercio dei piccoli di stambecchi, che venivano trasportati nella vicina Svizzera ove si pagavano dei prezzi elevatissimi, i cacciatori solevano per maggior facilit‡ uccidere le femmine, per catturare la prole" ("...and also in the last years of the reign of Vittorio Emanuele II, because of the commerce of Alpine ibex kids, which were carried into nearby Switzerland, where extremely high prices were paid, the hunters used to kill the females in order to catch more easily their offspring"). Allegedly, the kids were smuggled into Switzerland, mixing them in domestic goat herds crossing the frontier. The first successful reintroduction in Switzerland happened in 1920, near Piz Terza in Canton Graubunden. The reintroduced animals came from the Peter & Paul wildlife park of St.Gallen and the Harder wildlife park of Interlaken, which had obtained the animals thanks to the illegal captures done in the Gran Paradiso Royal hunting reserve (Giacometti, 1988). The redistribution of Alpine ibex over the European Alps had begun. Since then, especially after the Second World War, reintroduction projects started in all alpine countries, with founder animals coming either directly from the "mother of all Alpine ibex populations" (the Gran Paradiso population) or from reintroduced populations. Thanks to these efforts, nowadays about 40,000 Alpine ibex can again be seen in hundreds of populations all over the European Alps.

References

• Aghemo di Perno, N. 1910. Dello Stambecco. Eredi Botta ed. Torino.
  
• Couturier, M.A.J. 1962. Le bouquetin des Alpes. Imprimerie Allier, Grenoble, France.
  
• Giacometti, M. 1988. Zur Bewirtschaftung der Steinbockbest‰nde (Capra ibex ibex L.). Mit einem geschichtlichen Abriss der Steinbockkolonien im Kanton Graub¸nden.D.M.V. thesis, University of Z¸rich, Switzerland.
  
• Maschietti, G., Muti, M. and Passerin d'EntrËves, P. 1988. Serragli e menangerie in Piemonte nell'Ottocento sotto la Real casa di Savoia. Allemandi, Torino.
  
• Passerin d'EntrËves, P. 2000. Le chasses royales in Valle d'Aosta (1850-1919). Allemandi, Torino.
  
• Tibaldi, T. 1913. L'ultima giornata di caccia del Re. Una indimenticabile battuta; 53 capi uccisi. Corriere della Sera, 9 August 1913, p.4.