A man who was in possession of a regular hunting license and residing in Valpiana, fraction of the municipality of Massa Marittima (province of Grosseto), was sued after being caught using leghold trap and extracting a dead robin. The Provincial Police and the guards of the LAC (Anti Hunting League) they intervened on the spot and managed to discover thirty traps positioned in an area where hunting is prohibited. The individual had arrived in the area in the morning, taking advantage of the bitter cold and the fact that the birds were unable to find food at that time.
He was caught red-handed and was ready to use a second trap after using the first. Thanks to the traps he had been able to catch and to hide twelve robins in his jacket, but he also had a jar of bait with him to attract birds, to be exact gremignoli (flour moths). Agents and guards then recovered all the traps and the birds that remained stuck lifeless: the robins captured by the man were in total 25, without forgetting an eye and also two blackbirds.
The accusations made for the report on the loose is that of hunting with prohibited means, killing of particularly protected species and harrowing mistreatment and killing of animals. The latter accusation is motivated by the functioning of the leghold traps seized on the occasion. In fact, these are tools that trap the bird's neck and cause it to die through slow suffocation.
In the last few hours, two other people have also been reported in the province of Pavia after the discovery of prohibited acoustic calls and a bag hidden in a bush in which 16 dead birds had been placed, specifically finches, robins and brambles. In this case, the guards intervened WWF Lombardy.