The State Forestry Corps set in motion its Anti-poison Dog Unit (ADU), working at the State Forestry Corps command deployed at the Foreste Casentinesi National Park, when on 1st October a truffle hunter reported the presence of a poison bait near the village of Badia Prataglia (Municipality of Poppi, Province of Arezzo), alerting the local Carabinieri.

Puma, the ADU’s dog, and its handler, carefully inspected an area around a public park and a pitch, and found three poison baits.

A few days later, a citizen reported a bait in a green area of the village of Pratovecchio (Arezzo), not far from Badia Prataglia; the ADU carried out a further inspection and found suspicious material (gloves and bags) and a possible poison bait.

This shows how using poison baits is a regrettably common practice, even in and around towns, and how dangerous this can be for domestic animals as well as people: merely touching certain toxic substances can provoke serious poisoning, even without ingestion.

Furthermore, and contrary to what people might think, laying out baits around inhabited areas poses a serious threat for wild animals, as certain species (such as hedgehogs, foxes and badgers) get as far as town boundaries to find food: if they ingest toxic substances and then go back to the countryside or to natural areas, they become themselves deadly baits for other - even protected and threatened - animal species (birds of prey, wolves, squirrels, pine martens). Poisoned dogs and cats going out of towns may unwittingly play the same fatal role.

Finally, it is worth underlining how the intervention of ADUs importantly helps to raise public awareness on this phenomenon, to inform and alert citizens, and to promote disapproval and blame towards a contemptible practice, dangerous for people and animals alike.

These are fundamental aspects to prevent the use of poison and to promptly alert the ADUs and the competent authorities.