Italy: Bear meat served up at wine festival

AN INVESTIGATION has been launched after brown bear goulash was served to revellers at an Italian wine festival.

Animal rights campaigners demanded the inquiry after being tipped off that the dish had been cooked at the festival by chef Tomaz Kavcic.

Prosecutors will speak to the organisers of the event - at Merano, near Bolzano in the Italian Dolomites - as well as the chef, and are trying to trace people who ate the dish, which was described by one participant in a local newspaper as "very tasty".

Bears are a protected species in Europe and it is forbidden to hunt them as numbers are dwindling. Organisers say the bear was imported legally from neighbouring Slovenia and not killed in Italy, but as the species is protected Europe-wide officials at the prosecutor's office in Bolzano are investigating how it arrived at the festival.

Andrea Ragazzoni, from Bolzano's hunting and fishing department, said: "We have been asked to provide the paperwork for the prosecutor's office detailing how the bear meat arrived in Italy from Slovenia.

"It should have had a permit but this was never provided and so we have sent all the details we have to the prosecutor and he will decide if the bear was killed legally in Slovenia and whether the meat was imported legally."

Ester Valzolgher, of animal rights group LAV, said: "We hope those who are responsible for this are brought to justice."