Mushroom poaching and restrictions on mushroom picking in different countries
The idea that no one picks mushrooms in Europe, except s, is a big misconception. And the point is not only that our former and current compatriots have already managed to train a certain number of Germans, French, etc. “silent hunting”.
True, unlike us, only a few types of mushrooms are harvested in Europe. In Austria, for example, the first rules governing mushroom picking appeared as early as 1792. Under these rules, for example, russula could not be sold because their distinguishing features were considered unreliable. As a result, only 14 types of mushrooms were allowed to be sold in Vienna in the 50th century. And only in the 2th century, their number was increased to XNUMX. However, today only one in ten Austrians goes to the forest to pick mushrooms. In addition, Austrian laws, under the threat of a fine, limit the collection of mushrooms: without the consent of the owner of the forest, no one has the right to collect more than XNUMX kilograms.
But… What the Austrians cannot do, as it turned out, is possible for the Italians. A few years ago, in the south of Austria, in the lands bordering Italy, real “wars for the whites” unfolded. The fact is that Italian lovers of fresh mushrooms, quiet hunting (or easy money) organized almost entire mushroom buses to Austria. (In the north of Italy itself, where the rules for picking mushrooms are quite strict: a mushroom picker must have a permit from the area to which the forest belongs; licenses are issued for one day, but you can pick mushrooms only on even numbers, not earlier than 7 in the morning and not more than one kilogram per person.)
As a result, white mushrooms disappeared in East Tyrol. Austrian foresters sounded the alarm and pointed to cars with Italian numbers that cross the border en masse and line up along the Tyrolean thickets.
As one of the local residents of the province of Carinthia, neighboring Tyrol, said, “Italians come with mobile phones and, having discovered a mushroom place, convene a crowd of people to it, and we are left with bare bedding and a destroyed mycelium.” The apotheosis was the story when a car from Italy was detained at the border with Italy. 80 kg of mushrooms were found in the trunk of this car. After that, special mushroom licenses were introduced in Carinthia for 45 euros and fines for illegal mushroom picking (up to 350 euros).
A similar story is also developing on the border between Switzerland and France. Here, the Swiss are the mushroom “shuttles”. The Swiss cantons most often regulate the amount of collected mushrooms up to 2 kg per day per person. In some places, the collection of whites, chanterelles and morels is strictly monitored. In other cantons, special mushroom days are allocated. For example, in the canton of Graubünden on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, you can collect no more than 1 kg of mushrooms per person, and on the 10th and 20th of each month it is generally forbidden to pick mushrooms. Considering that individual settlements have the right to add other restrictions to this, it is clear how hard life is for Swiss mushroom pickers. Not surprisingly, they got into the habit of traveling to France, taking advantage of the fact that there are not such harsh rules. As the French press writes, in autumn this results in real raids on French forests. That is why during the mushroom season, French customs officers pay special attention to Swiss motorists, and there have even been cases when some of them, having collected too many mushrooms, ended up in jail.