The legal battle of LNDC Animal Protection, LAV and WWF Italia continues to defend the bears and legality and this time the accusation against the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT) led by the Northern League member Fugatti is sensational. In fact, the associations have filed their briefs with the Council of State regarding the appeal presented for the affair of the F36 bear, found dead in unclear circumstances in September last year after a kill warrant was pending on her by the President of the Autonomous Province of Trento.
Animalists and environmentalists recall that «In October, the TAR of Trento declared the appeals presented by the Associations against President Fugatti’s decrees to be admissible given that the bear was now dead. The animal protection organisations, however, had appealed to the Council of State against this decision of the TAR, also requesting that the highest body of administrative justice take a position on the constitutional legitimacy of the policy carried out by the Trentino local administration on the management of a species as important as the bear.”
The lawyers Michele Pezone and Paolo Letrari, who are following the matter on behalf of LAV, LNDC Animal Protection and WWF Italia, declared that «Following this appeal, the PAT presented an autopsy examination dated 19/6/2023 of a bear who died of natural causes which cannot be the F36 bear, found dead on 9/27/23. Therefore, as there is still no certainty of the causes of the death of the F36 bear, the suspicion remains that the unjustified emphasis on the alleged dangerousness of this bear specimen may have led to its death at the hands of man. In ten days we will see what the PAT’s replies to these arguments of ours will be, then we will wait for the ruling from the Council of State.”
The associations conclude: «It is disheartening and worrying to see a public administration presenting documentation before the highest body of administrative justice that has nothing to do with the case under discussion. Perhaps it is simply an oversight or perhaps it is a clumsy attempt to confuse the waters, carried out in the hope that no one would notice that the autopsy examination filed had been carried out 3 months before F36’s death. In both cases, we must take note of the negligent attitude carried out by the PAT to the detriment of legality and the protection of animals and the environment, of which bears are an integral part. Moreover, in a public interview, Fugatti himself openly declared that he does not care about animal welfare. However, all this is not acceptable and we will not stand by and watch.”
