Outrage in Italy over video of Donald Trump's son hunting in a protected area

BarcelonaIf, immersed in the trade war, the confrontation between Donald Trump and Europe was not enough, this week a new front linked to the family of the Republican president has opened. The focus of controversy, this time, has been his son Donald Trump Junior, due to a video in which he appears hunting protected bird species in the lagoon of Venice. The images have caused a wave of indignation in Italy, where the Greens have already presented a request for the Minister of Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, to appear to give explanations to Parliament.

In the video, you can see a group of hunters – among them the president's first-born – who attract the birds, shoot them and how the birds fall to the ground. All this in a supposedly protected area. Afterwards, one of the men details the species of birds they have shot down. The images were released by the regional deputy Andrea Zanoni, from Europa Verde, in the Veneto Regional Council, in the Venice region.

Zanoni has filed a complaint against Donald Trump Junior with the forestry police in Mestre for having shot protected birds, which would constitute a criminal offence as well as an administrative one, according to some local media.

According to the politician, the scenes in which Trump's son appears "shooting several ducks" were "probably filmed recently in Valle Pirimpie, in Campagna Lupia", which is "an area protected by European regulations and is part of an EU Natura 2000 site, as Zone-E. "Veneto and Italy are not the property of the United States," Zanoni assured through social networks.

According to this deputy, in a frame of the video in which the American appeared describing the killed ducks, a cinnamon duck can be distinguished (Tadorna ferrugginea) in the foreground, which is a protected species. In fact, the EU Birds Directive and Italian law criminalize its killing and possession.