Let’s stop the anachronistic Palio delle Oche of Lacchiarella: birds forced to run for over a kilometer (and dragged with leashes)

On the afternoon of Sunday 11 October, the municipality of Lacchiarella, located south of Milan, was the scene of the usual road race to close the Ciarlasco Autumn. The traditional Palio delle Oche involves a competition lasting just over a kilometer on the asphalt, in which the handlers guide the birds towards the finish line amidst shouts and noise. However, the demonstration ended up at the center of very hot controversies and formal protests. Among the public were in fact representatives of the Animalist Task Force association, led by president Carolina Sala, to monitor the health conditions and stress suffered by the animals during the road test.

Activists have openly railed against this barbarism, highlighting the strong state of psychophysical suffering suffered by the geese. During the race, in fact, several birds flapped their wings very nervously, slowed down or desperately tried to leave the track. The handlers continued to encourage them and drag them along the route with harnesses and leashes, forcing them to run on a hard, hot surface. As reported by President Carolina Sala, the repeated impact of the webbed paws on the asphalt has generated painful abrasions and injuries to the animals’ limbs, raising indignation among animal rights protectors.

The legal warning and the expert reports against Autunno Ciarlasco

The institutional battle had actually already begun last October 6, when the Animal Rights Task Force served a formal warning not to proceed, combined with a request for access to documents to block the demonstration. The recipients of the measure were the Municipality of Lacchiarella, the ATS Metropolitan City of Milan, the General Welfare Directorate of the Lombardy Region and the Forestry Carabinieri. The association clarified that, in the absence of blocking the event or in the absence of a rejection of the authorization, it would file an immediate complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office to ascertain the criminal responsibilities of the organizers.

The legal action, promoted by the lawyer Massimiliano Salvatore Monaco of the Milan Bar, is based on two detailed technical-scientific reports. The reports bear the signature of the biologist and cognitive ethologist Francesco De Giorgio and the naturalist and ornithologist Luigi Andena. According to their analyses, forced running on asphalt constitutes a clear violation of article 544-ter of the Penal Code for the crime of animal abuse. Furthermore, animal rights activists contest the presumed historicity of the Chattering Autumn, recalling how the Palio is a recent prank born at the end of the Seventies, without real secular roots that could justify exemptions on the protection of animal welfare.