Valle Sabbia: A sophisticated bird-trapping system discovered; Carabinieri Forestry Police seize large amounts of wildlife.

It was discovered and dismantled by the Forestry Carabinieri of the Gavardo Unit A complex system of illegal bird trapping was discovered on the property of a 79-year-old man living in a municipality in the lower Valle Sabbia, in the province of Brescia. The elderly man, a member of the FOI (Italian Ornithologists' Federation), operated a well-concealed and carefully structured bird trapping system on his private property.

During the reclamation of approximately 1.000 square meters of land, the military have identified four hidden capture sites between the house's garden and an adjacent agricultural plot. Each station was equipped with camouflage nets and electromagnetic acoustic decoys, tools prohibited because they are intended for the indiscriminate capture of wild fauna.

Thanks to the timely intervention, the Forestry Corps managed to free and release 20 birds back into the wild, including robins, blackcaps, and dunnocks, some of which were trapped in nets, others used as live decoys in small cages. The operation led to the seizure of a large quantity of illegal equipment:

• 27 fowling nets, of which 10 have already been installed, for a total length of approximately 120 metres;

• 37 “SEP” type snap traps;

• 80 bird identification rings, potentially destined for the illicit regularization of specimens captured in the wild.

The man was referred to the Judicial Authority for the alleged indiscriminate removal of wild fauna by non-selective means, a conduct which represents damage to the State's wildlife heritage.