One of the handful of brown bears living in the Italian Alps has died after being tranquilised for capture in an operation ordered after she mauled a mushroom hunter. In an incident that enfuriated animal rights groups, the 19-year-old female, Daniza, was knocked out so that she could be transferred to a more remote part of the Trento region of northern Italy, a spokesman for the provincial government said. Carla Rocchi, the chair of the Italian Association for the Protection of Animals (ENPA), added: "This didn't happen by chance or by accident. Local officials had been trying to capture Daniza since August 15, when she injured Daniele Maturi, a local man who chanced upon her and her two cubs in woods near the small village of Pinzolo, sparking a national debate over the wisdom of efforts to conserve a colony of bears in the Alps.
Fury as mother bear dies after capture in Italian Alps
