Today (1st February), an item was posted on guardian.co.uk titled ‘Italian hunting in the dock after 35 people killed in four months’.
‘… It is not just birds, rabbits and wild boar who meet a sticky end in the Italian hunting season.
According to statistics published today, 35 people have also been killed in the past four months, and another 74 injured. Italy‘s anti-hunting league, the LAC, said all but one were hunters killed accidentally by their shooting companions …
The annual bloodletting is a result of the unusual freedom allowed to shooting parties under Italian law. They can go on to private property and fire anywhere not within 50m of a road or 150m of a house …
Silvio Berlusconi’s tourism minister, Michela Vittoria Brambilla – a noted animal lover – said she had tabled a bill to double the distance limits and scrap the authorisation to cross private land …
The guns were to fall quiet yesterday in line with recent national legislation that curbed the shooting season to protect migratory birds … But in several parts of Italy, the new law has been countermanded by regional governments …
Though politically influential, the hunting community is increasingly unpopular. A survey published by Eurispes, a research institute, found that that less than 18% of Italians regarded shooting as an acceptable pastime …’
Read the item at www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/01/italy-hunting-crisis-35-deaths
Posted on January 18, 2011
0