ASTI – The soldiers of the Nucleus Asti Forestry Carabinieriduring the ordinary patrolling of the territory, on the outskirts of the municipality of Asti, the abandonment of a specimen of stuffed crocodile of which the real owner had probably got rid of it because it was illegally detained. Having carried out preliminary investigations aimed at identifying the possible owner, the military proceeded to collect the specimen for the subsequent certain identification of the species. Thanks to the collaboration of an expert herpetologist, it emerged that the stuffed animal belonged to the Spectacled Caiman species – “Caiman crocodilus”, included in a particular list of species protected by the so-called “CITES” Convention.
The military therefore proceeded to carry out the criminal seizure of the stuffed animal from unknown persons as it was not accompanied by the required documentation which should certify its legal origin and provenance. It is important to underline that the CITES regulation protects not only live specimens of fauna and flora, but also dead and stuffed animals or parts of these, such as skins for reptiles or ivory tusks for elephants.
The 1973 Washington Convention (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), also known as “CITES”, was born from the need to regulate and control the trade of the so-called “specimen” (animals and plants, alive, dead or derived parts), as their commercial exploitation, very profitable, represents one of the main causes of the extinction or decline in nature of numerous species.
CITES therefore makes the trade of over 30,000 protected species of fauna and flora sustainable, attributing various degrees of limitations up to, in some cases, an absolute ban on possession and marketing. Through a complex system of certifications and controls in the territory aimed at verifying the legal possession of the CITES specimen, whoever owns a specimen must be able to demonstrate, by means of specific CITES documentation which can always be presented to the control bodies, the certain provenance of the specimen, deriving from or from a birth in captivity or from an authorized take from the natural environment for that species. The Italian legislation that implements the CITES Convention (Law 150/1992) provides for criminal and administrative sanctions in case of non-compliance.
