The 1,280 overall inspections, carried out by the LIFE PLUTO Anti-Poison Dog Units (UCA), managed by the Carabinieri Command Unit for Forest, Environmental and Agri-Food (CUFAA), involved 11 Italian regions and 26 provinces.
11% of inspections (152) were positive, leading to the identification of suspicious elements, potentially related to poisoning or to other crimes against fauna: in particular, 200 bites and baits and 100 carcasses of animals were removed.
Urgent inspections, activated following reports from local CUFAA, management bodies of the Protected Areas, private citizens, mayors and associations, were the most important to identify bites and carcasses: 31% of them (126) gave actually a positive result.
The cases of poisoning (ascertained by toxicological analysis or, in any case, likely) are 80, for a minimum total of 163 baits and 50 carcasses. The number also reports the likely cases: it may happen that the presence of poison could not be confirmed by such analysis, due to bad condition of the findings or to the lack of material.
| Inspections carried out | Positive inspections | No. of bites found | No. of carcasses found |
| 1.228 | 152 | 163 | 50 |
The victims found during the inspections are many species of wild animals and a large number of dogs and cats, who died in urban, rural and natural areas. The poison is a common and widespread practice, adopted for many different criminal purposes.
In the poisoned bites and/or in the carcasses of the 12 animals, toxic substances have been identified: many of them have been withdrawn from the market for a long time, but the use of multiple substances at the same time is also widespread.
Over the years, the UCAs of the LIFE PLUTO project have progressively increased the number of inspections and, nowadays, they are able to carry out about 46 inspections each month. To this number, it is also important to add the inspections carried out by the other six UCAs, which were activated by CUFAA thanks to other LIFE projects.
