It’s all because of the search for truffles in Italy. A kilo of these coveted mushrooms costs between 9 and 20 million pesos, and the animals pay the piper.
Hundreds of dogs, foxes and wolves are dying in the forests of Italy. Hikers find them decomposing on the ground, limbs stiff, mouths hanging open, and eyes bloody, victims of the poison that some truffle hunters hide in wilderness areas across the country.
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The objective of these poisonings is to end the growing competition by killing the dogs that, with their privileged sense of smell, help the collectors locate the coveted truffles, a fungus that is difficult to find and highly appreciated in Italian gastronomy for its intense flavor.
“About 30 years ago there were few prospectors and the collecting areas were large. Unfortunately, we now have a lot more truffle hunters and fewer areas to search for them. The competition is increasing”, Stefano Scaccia, the secretary of Assotartufai, the association of Italian truffle collectors, explains to EFE.
Thor, a three-year-old spaniel, is one of the victims of these rivalries: during the Christmas holidays he walked with his owner, Thomas Morasca, through the woods inland in Lazio, a few kilometers from Rome. They both enjoyed the snowy landscape while the hound searched for truffles hidden under a white blanket, but that was not what he found.
In a moment of distraction, Thor came across a sausage filled with strychnine, a powerful poison that attacks the central nervous system causing intense pain and violent convulsions that keep the person who ingests it conscious until it paralyzes the lungs and heart and causes death. .
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“Thor’s passing was very quick. As soon as I saw that he was eating a poisoned bait, I took it out of his mouth, carried him in my arms and started running towards the village. He had not traveled even 300 meters when the dog began to convulse. Despite the fact that I tried to make him vomit, he cannot prevent his death ”, laments Thomas.
He, like many of the 150,000 registered truffle hunters in Italy, lives collecting these mushrooms as a hobby that allows them to enjoy nature in the company of their pets: “It’s a way to disconnect from stress, relax and have fun in the forest with my dogs”, he explained to EFE.
But not all prospectors see a hobby in their trips to the forest. It should not be forgotten that a kilo of white truffles sells for about 4,000 euros (about 20 million pesos), while the black one is around 1,800 euros (about 9 million pesos).
A lot of money at stake, fewer areas for harvesting and more and more seekers: these three factors lead a few truffle hunters to want to destroy the competition at any cost. The collectors themselves suspect their companions as guilty of the poisonings.
This is how Martina Ercoli explains it, who lost her very young Brando, a chocolate-colored Labrador retriever just a year and a half old, who died of poisoning during an excursion through the forests of the municipality of Camerata Nuova, an hour’s drive from Rome.
“The police told us that Brando was the third dog to die in a single week, the victim of criminals who appear to be truffle hunters,” he detailed on social networks, in which he warns of the danger that walking through some forests has become. Italians.
However, the collectors themselves insist that the animal killers are few and that they do not represent the thousands of fans of the truffle hunt.
“We want to end the deaths of truffle dogs because they are a disgrace that does not honor our work. The real truffle collector is not a murderer. Our best friends should be dogs”, Stefano Scaccia assures EFE.
fear of reporting
Despite the fact that the police and associations stress the importance of reporting poisonings, many seekers do not report the death of their dogs due to “fear that their truffle-collection areas will be discovered,” explains the secretary of Assotartufai.
“It can’t be that there have been dozens of dog deaths and only one or two murders have been reported. We have to make these cases public, it is the only way in which we can make sure that the municipalities know about the poisonings and can monitor the forests”, he adds.
Meanwhile, the truffle hunters’ association advises truffle hunters to “be careful and take all necessary precautions in the woods, muzzling dogs to prevent them from eating poisoned bait.”