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Donald Trump Jr has been accused of killing a protected duck while hunting in the Venice lagoon.
Andrea Zanoni, a regional counsellor in Veneto, said a video of a hunting trip in northern Italy showed Trump Jr with the body of a rare ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea).
“This is a species protected throughout Europe by the EU birds directive and of course by Italian law … [which] criminally punishes its killing and possession,” he said. “Veneto and Italy are not the property of the USA,” he added in a post on Facebook.
Trump Jr can be seen shooting ducks from a foxhole in a lagoon in the video from Field Ethos, an outdoor lifestyle publication he co-founded. In one clip, he points at a distinctive rusty orange duck among the bodies of half a dozen waterfowl.
“This is actually a rather uncommon duck for the area,” he says. “Not even sure what it is in English, but incredible shoot.”
The ruddy shelduck, known in India as the Brahminy duck, is a migratory bird that winters in south Asia and breeds in south-east Europe. Its global conservation status is not under threat but environmentalists have raised concerns about its future as climate breakdown shifts its breeding range.
Zanoni said killing the protected bird was a crime and questioned Trump Jr’s right to hunt in Italy as a non-resident.
Massimo Buconi, the president of the Italian Hunting Federation, pushed back on the claim that foreigners were not able to hunt in Italy but said the law would have indeed been broken if the bird in the video was confirmed as a ruddy shelduck.
“At a glance it looks like a ruddy shelduck,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s protected in America, but in Europe, and in Italy, it is protected. You cannot hunt it.”
Zanoni said the video appeared to have been filmed in the Pierimpie’ valley near Venice, in a special conservation area. He said he had asked the regional authority “what sanctions it intends to impose” on the parties involved, such as suspending or revoking the licence of the company that authorised the hunt.
A Green member of the national parliament, Luana Zanella, has escalated the matter to the environment ministry.
Neither Zanoni nor Trump Jr immediately responded to a request for comment from AFP.
Field Ethos did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian. The voiceover of the video said the trip took place on private land and that it took measures to respect the local environment.
Trump Jr visited Venice in December with his girlfriend, according to Italian media reports. The 48-year-old is an avid trophy hunter. In 2020 he was granted a permit to hunt an Alaskan grizzly bear. Earlier that year a week-long “dream hunt” with Trump Jr had been auctioned at a trophy hunting convention in Nevada.
The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was among Europe’s far-right leaders who attended the inauguration of Trump Jr’s father. The Italian leader had visited Trump Sr’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida earlier that month, during which Trump described her as “a fantastic woman” who is “really taking Europe by storm”.
Zanoni said: “The current Meloni government now seems to be kept on a leash by the new US political direction.”
