ITALY: Italy's environment minister has demanded Germany return a brown bear killed in Bavaria last week by a government-sanctioned hunter after it wandered away from an Italian refuge
Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio has asked Bavarian state officials to release the body to Italian forestry officials, saying the animal was the property of the Italian state.
Mr Scanio had previously lodged a protest with his German counterpart, and said the bear, a protected species, should have been shot with tranquillisers.
Part of a project to reintroduce brown bears in northern Italy, the two-year- old bear roamed into Austria and Germany, where it killed sheep and rabbits.
Bavarian officials granted permission to kill the predator, recanted, then quietly gave approval again.
He was taken down with a single shot last week. - (AP)