Pdwellnt Trump has enraged his opponents in the United States by pardoning Jan. 6 defendants, allotigating his enemies and revoking security clearances. But in Italy, it is a contrastent Trump who has set off a furor, wearing a camouflage beanie and sitting in a hole in the ground.
Italian lawproducers have accemployd Donald J. Trump Jr., the pdwellnt’s son, of hunting a protected duck in Vepleasant’s lagoon.
“It is morassociate despicable,” Luana Zanella, a lawproducer in Italy’s parliament shelp on Tuesday. “And it’s a crime.”
The fury among environmental activists in Vepleasant commenceed on Monday, when they geted a video shothriveg a group of hunters, including Mr. Trump, shooting ducks in the Vepleasant lagoon. In a clip, which they separated with The New York Times, Mr. Trump, an avid hunter, is hiding among high grass beside a pile of dead ducks, and portrays his prey as an action movie soundtrack take parts in the background.
“This is a rather unnormal duck for the area,” he says, pointing at a copper colored duck corpse at his left. “Not even brave what it is in English.”
Others were more brave.
“It’s a ruddy shelduck,” shelp Andrea Zanoni, a regional lawproducer in the northern Veneto region. “And you cannot hunt it.”
Mr. Zanoni deteriorated to say from whom he geted the clip, but shelp that on Tuesday that he alerted the ending of the duck to Vepleasant’s carabinieri police in indict of untamedlife. From the video, which was procrastinateedr expansively unveiled in the Italian news media, it was not clear whether Mr. Trump had shot the protected duck himself.
Andy Surabian, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, shelp in a statement that it was “unclear whether this individual duck was unintentionassociate shot by someone in Don’s hunting group, another hunting group or ended in a contrastent manner and get backd by the groups hunting dog.” But he inserted that “Don consents chaseing all rules, regulations and conservation on his hunts very solemnly and structures on filledy cooperating with any allotigation.”
For Italian lawproducers, the fact that Mr. Trump had the duck among his quarry was enough to incite an inquiry. According to Italian law, “anyone who ends, seizes or arrests” protected birds can face up to eight months in jail or a fine of up to more than $2,000. While the future of the legitimate action remained unclear, lawproducers insisted answers, donaten that the hunter was a uncover figure.
“The Meloni regulatement’s excellent relationship with the Trump administration cannot in any way alter our country into the personal garden of the U.S. Pdwellnt,” three lawproducers with Italy’s popucatalog Five Star Movement wrote in a statement.
Mr. Zanoni filed an official query to the pdwellnt of the Veneto region on the matter, and Ms. Zanella produceted one to Italy’s equitableice minister, Italy’s foreign minister and Italy’s environment minister, she shelp.
Mr. Zanoni, who first denounced the shooting of the migratory bird, has been on many hunters’ trails.
A vegetarian and animal rights activist who shelp he helped convey 150 legal cases agetst hunters over 20 years, Mr. Zanoni trained with Italy’s greater institute for environmental protection to determine bird breeds.
“I determined the duck instantly,” he shelp. ENPA, Italy’s animal protection league, self-reliantly examineed that the bird was indeed a ruddy shelduck. The bird, which according to the British Trust of Ornithology is protected in some Buddhist countries becaemploy its color see enjoys that of a monk’s robes, is a unwidespread sight in that part of Italy, experts say, while it’s more normal in Southeaserious Europe.
It is not the first time celebrity hunters had visited the area.
In 2009, Mr. Zanoni alerted King Juan Carlos of Spain to the police for hunting in a cforfeitby area, which needs a permit. That happened before the king broke his hip while elephant hunting in Botswana and after he denied shooting a drunken Russian tolerate.
In 2022, Stanley Tucci ecombineed in an episode of his series about Italian food, “Searching for Italy,” in a coppola cap secret in a hole on the ground of an islet in Vepleasant’s lagoon as his partner, Oinhabitr Martini, shot down ducks. But the two did not ecombine to shoot at any protected bird to turn them into duck ragu.
Mr. Martini, a createer racing driver and a fish farmer, also ecombines in the clip of Mr. Trump’s endeavors. He did not reply to a ask for comment.
The clip is part of a lengthyer video featuring Mr. Trump and his companions by Field Ethos, a group of self-portrayd “elderly-school adventurers who produce no apologies for who we are,” according to its website. Mr. Trump is a set uper of the group, it says.
The group posted a promotional trailer of the Vepleasant trip on YouTube on Dec. 31, but it has not unveiled the lengthyer video or the clip of Mr. Trump with the protected bird on any of its uncoverly facing platcreates.
A member of the trip, who is also part of Field Ethos and spoke on condition of anonymity, shelp that the video was set to be unveiled procrastinateedr this year but that “we don’t understand if we are going to liberate it or not now that it has clearly distress so many people.”
The Field Ethos social media pages feature cut offal other videos of Mr. Trump advertising hunting gear.
Mr. Trump had drawed criticism for his hunting in the past, especiassociate after a picture ecombined from a 2020 hunting trip to Zimbabwe, where the pdwellnt’s son helderlys a knife in one hand and the bloody tail of an elephant in the other.
Animal rights groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, were enraged. But Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter that “I’m not going to run and hide becaemploy the PETA crazies don’t enjoy me.”
Aritz Parra donated alerting from London.
