A fine of 1500 euros for “illegal kennel”plus the administrative seizure of the 37 dogs present in land with an adjoining house. Finally, the obligation to keep the seized animals there. If it weren’t true, it would seem like literature inspired by Kafka or a hoax to get likes. Instead this is what the ASP of Crotone decidedwhich, following an inspection conducted last May 20th near Cerenzia (Crotone) together with the carabinieri of Caccuri (Crotone), he challenged the owner, thirty-year-old Giandomenico Oliverio, the dog volunteer whose story we had toldthe activation of a structure “used as a shelter for pets”, in report number 2 of 2024, general protocol number 26704, of 24 May 2024. In the first half of 2024, it would therefore be just the second relevant report to interventions of this kind by the veterinary service manager of the ASP of Crotone. It may be that Oliverio’s generosity, well known in the Caccuri area and surrounding areas, at some point annoyed someonewho, as usual in the Calabria of conflicts between private individuals, perhaps then triggered the control with his own description to the authorities.
Time will tell whether the heavy sanction of the public veterinarians and the carabinieri – who should have already known about the boy’s non-profit activity, as he was the recipient of a certain local fame – arose from a report out of spite or not, in a context that he is not at all renowned for the diffusion of civil complaints nor, with the exception of the example of Giandomenico, for demonstrations of charity towards animals.
From what we learned, then, initially the orientation of the inspectors would have been to sanction Oliverio for almost 10 thousand euroswith the initial hypothesis of mistreatment of the dogs, however it fell through at the sight of those 37 quadrupeds, to whom the young volunteer, as we had already written, guarantees water, food and care at his own expense.
In another report, drawn up by the Caccuri police station and the veterinary service, Area C, of the ASP of Crotone, several images of the state of the places inspected are reported, then published by several press organs, as if photos of this kind could in any case be in the public domain or facilitate the exact understanding of the facts.
In the same document, which shows the spaces in which Oliverio kept – and keeps, in compliance with the seizure provisions – the dogs collected by him, otherwise destined for starvation and exposed to dangers, the interested party is accused of having created and managed a «shelter for pets without the required authorization referred to in art. 5 of Legislative Decree 134/2022 and art. 27 of Regional Law 45 of 3 October 2023″. In particular, in article 28, the aforementioned regional law of Calabria identifies, among the structures for which the required authorization is mandatory, the so-called «zoophilic structure“, which the aforementioned provision defines as “managed, without profit, by bodies, voluntary associations or private individuals and intended for the shelter, mainly for the purpose of adoption, or temporary or long-term protected shelter, of dogs, cats and other pets.” «This structure – establishes the same article 28 – is in any case authorized by the veterinary service dependent on the provincial health company competent for the territory».
Therefore, there is little that can be done: despite his sincere love for dogs and his daily sacrifice to recover abandoned and suffering ones, Giandomenico has to pay the fine – of an amount higher than the average salary of Calabrians – since he did not have the mandatory authorization. The aforementioned regional law does not contemplate a case like yours, proving that regulations are often written without much consideration of local realities and forgetting, specifically, the lack of public policies in Calabria aimed at reducing or resolving stray animals, even in collaboration with civil society.
Furthermore, the meshes of state law are too loose: “the private homes of keepers and owners of companion animals” are exempt from the authorization, states article 5 of Legislative Decree number 134/2022. And Giandomenico does not keep the dogs inside the house where he lives, but just outside, in the land where he hosts them. Therefore it is obvious that he cannot, alone and with his own income from employment, comply with the technical requirements contained in the legislation in force and remembered with bureaucratic rigor in the joint report of the veterinarians of the ASP of Crotone and the Carabinieri of Caccuri.
Regarding the fact summarized here, in a recent note we read that «the Carabinieri continues tirelessly with the work of raising awareness on the delicate environmental issue as well as the prevention and repression of the increasingly widespread mistreatment of animals, through services aimed at fight against any form of illegality to protect health and safeguard the natural heritage”.
Then we must ask ourselves whether the leaders of the force, which over the centuries has always stood out for its humanity, have read this press note and what reconstructions they have of the stray dog in the province of Crotone, also with respect to potential public defaults; whether there are abandoned dogs among the 37 that Giandomenico has to take care of; whether the ASP of Crotone, who did not specify it in the two aforementioned reports, identified, through the reading of the microchips, the possible owners of the quadrupeds hosted by the young man; what policies the Municipality of Caccuri, where the land with the boy’s house is located, has implemented to address the problem of stray dogs; whether the public captures in the territory are greater in number than the rescues that Oliverio has carried out; if it were indispensable, inevitable and pedagogical to sanction this volunteer, who does not navigate in gold or sell animals or do business on their skin.
Finally, we must ask ourselves whether this bad story leads the Regional Council of Calabria to modify, to improve it, LR number 45 of 3 October 2023 and whether Giandomenico Oliverio deserves to be left alone in the affair. ([email protected])
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