House panel OKs crackdown on bear killers

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 21 - A House panel on Thursday OKd a crackdown on bear killers after a recent case in Abruzzo in which a man shot dead a female bear after she strayed onto hos property, saying she had scared him.
    The green light to an amendment that 'toughens the penalties for those who capture or kill Marsican bears' was announced by the chair of the Constitutional Affairs Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Nazario Pagano, centre-right Forza Italia (FI) Abruzzo regional coordinator, commenting on the proposed amendment to a justice bill.
    "The amendment," Pagano said, "provides for the arrest from six months to two years and a fine from 4,000 euros to 10,000 euros in the case of the killing, capture and possession of Marsican brown bear specimens." The popular bear Amarena was gunned down in the Abruzzo national park on the evening of August 31 by a 56-year-old resident of San Benedetto dei Marsi.
    Her cubs are said to be surviving OK and fending for themselves, after initial fears they would not be able to. (ANSA).