I post this as a European and a lover of Italy and most things Italian...
But the Italians are the environmental disgrace of Europe, unfortunately,
for reasons both biogeographical and culinary. A high proportion of
Europe's smaller migrant passerines migrate through Italy, for reasons
that a glance at the map will clarify. Country Italians enjoy a delicacy
they call "beccafica," which is whole small birds pickled in a jar, eaten
guts'n all.. "Beccafico" is the Italian for a Garden Warbler [Sylvia
borin], which tells you far more than you wanted to know about the
contents of those jars. The Italians annually decimate the European
warbler population, and have so far resisted introducing any serious
governmental measures to curb the practice, despite the entreaties of the
whole of the rest of Europe. European conservationists predict a
population catastrophe for Europe's bird population if Italy keeps this
up. Depressing.

On Wed, 19 Apr 1995, Russell Rogers wrote:

> >From Russell Rogers, Seattle, Washington, rrogers at halcyon.com
>
> >Oh, if you are going to Europe, stay away from Mediterranean countries. The
> >annual kill, from hunting migrant birds, from Sparrows through to Imperial
> >Eagles is around 300 million. All this for sport. At least cats tend to eat
> >their kills.
> >
> >
> >Sturat McKay
>
> Sorry Sturat, I will have to jump on that one. The part of a cats brain
> that tells it to eat is different than the part that tells it to hunt.
> Cats will hunt on a full stomach. That is why their kills are often left
> on the door step.
>
> You are right of course about the lighthouse keeper being the root of the
> problem. There is no question that humans are at fault with the entire
> problem. If the cat had not gotten it then a rat probably would have, if
> not the rat, then a pig, if not a pig, then a brown tree snake, and so
> on.
>
> Russell Rogers.
>
>
>

_________________________________________________________________________
JAMES WEST|University of Washington DP-32, Seattle, WA 98195|206-543-4892