ITALY’S CARE

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 September 1938, Page 2

ITALY’S CARE

FOR BEASTS AND BIRDS. For many- years Fascist Party instructors have been impressing on the youth of the nation the principles and practice of kindness to animals. The ascist youth in their turn take a boyscout pride in passing on this gospel and in active deeds of mercy to animals (writes the Rome Correspondent of the London “Sunday- Times.’’) In this way an ancient and dishonourable tradition of cruelty to animals, which was particularly strong in the South, is gradually- being broken down. The initial impetus was given in 1913, when Luigi Luzetti sponsored the first law punishing cruelty to animals. This was incorporated with amendments into the Criminal Code of 1931, and is supplemented by the Acerbo Act of the same year regulating hunting. Besides cruelty to working animals, this law debars the employment of animals in public games or spectacles of a nature involving cruelty- or suffering. Bull-fighting would come under this ban. although it is significant that this amusement never became popular in Italy. Very strict supervision has been established over vivisection, and anaesthesia, is compulsory- except in cases where this 'is absolutely- impossible. There are now some sixty organisations for the protection of animals, grouped in a national federation called the National Fascist Organisation for the Protection of Animals. One of their ’activities is providing homes for stray dogs. In the long, hot Italian Summer, it would be unwise to allow stray dogs to wander at liberty, and in Rome the municipality impounds fill unmuzzled strays. If they are tinclaimed after eight days, the municipality either destroys them or turns them over to the N.F.0.P.A., which accepts as many- animals as it can place with persons who have applied for dogs. Another phase of his new attitude towards animals has bepn tlie interest which has grown up in nature stud’ and in the preservation of dying species.

Italy lies along two of the most important migratory routes for bir/ls, and in Spring and Autumn the peninsula is invaded by- hundreds of species of transients. In the past these yvere captured in large number.s by evefypossible means, but the Acerbo Act has put a stop to the worst excesses. Netting is forbidden completely- on dunes and on the sea shore to a point 1,000 metres beyond the inland limitpf tho dunes. It is also forbidden on all mountain passes at an altitude above 1,000 metres and its complete abolition is being sought by the N.F.0.P.A.. An exception to the netting law is made in favour of the Ornithological Observatory at Castelfusano, near Ostia, where quails arriving from Africa are netted, ringed, and then freed., This observatory- was established in 1930 under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, the Zoological Institute of Rome and the National Fascist Federation of Italian Hunters. It’ is directed by Prince Francesco Chigi della Rovere, a wellknown ornithologist, and is specialising for the present on quail migration, which is a very- complex phenomenon, both as to the duration of transit and its irregularity.

Quails appear in Italy, settling for choice on the promontories, between the second half of April and the beginning of July. There is no definite knowledge of their point of origin except that it is Africa. They come in very often only a few feet above the sea and generally fall exhausted on the dunes, where they lie for some hours resting. Some nest here, others ccnt i n u e northw ar d s.

A phenomenon believed to be unique among the migratory birds has been established by the Castelfusano observers: in the rearguard of the Spring passage have been found young birds only a. few months old, accompanied bv adult females whose breasts are denuded of feathers after sitting, which points conclusively to nesting in Africa, before migrating.

Complete protection is now given to the stork, which passes in migration, and to wrens, robins, woodpeckers, swallows, nightingales, chiff-chaffs, swans, and all owls except the great eagle owl.