The tranquility of the Alpine paths around the Great Saint Bernard pass has been violated by a serious episode of poaching that cannot fail to cause outrage. Three men aged 49, 29 and 20 years old, all residents in the Aosta Valley municipality of Saint-Rhémy en Bosses, were caught red-handed by forestry officers from the Etroubles and Aosta stations while carrying out a criminal action against protected fauna.
A young three-year-old male ibex ended up in the crosshairs of the transgressors, belonging to a species that has been strictly protected since 1922, the year in which the establishment of the Gran Paradiso National Park saved the last remaining specimens from total extinction along the Alpine arc. The poachers did not just kill the animal, but eviscerated and cleaned it directly on the spot, hiding the remains among the rocks of the scree before loading the carcass and returning to their homes.
@Tgr
Followed and discovered: the search and the macabre loot in the barn
Unfortunately for them, however, their crime had not gone unnoticed. The Forestry officers had in fact caught them in the act and chose to follow them, following the three suspects step by step to their properties. Once they reached their destination, the foresters broke into a barn owned by one of them, discovering the ibex carcass hanging inside, ready to be slaughtered.
The inspection quickly extended to the connected apartment, reserving a further gruesome discovery: a marmot was also found inside a domestic freezer, also the victim of illegal removal. Faced with such clear evidence, the three residents were immediately reported free for very serious hunting and environmental crimes.
The crackdown by the authorities and the seizure of the arsenal
The investigation was not limited to just reporting the crime, but involved preventive and decisive action by the police to neutralize any further risk for Alpine fauna. The authorities in fact proceeded with the immediate seizure of all the weapons used to kill the ibex and, as a completely precautionary measure, all the other hunting rifles legally held in their respective homes by the three suspects were also confiscated. A harsh intervention that underlines the intransigence of the Valle d’Aosta Forestry Corps in repressing poaching, a hateful phenomenon that threatens the ecological balance and the survival of unique species that represent the uncontaminated symbol of our mountains.
