The news had long been anticipated. With regard to exotic and wild animals, the Senate has given final approval to the European delegation law, thereby transposing the EU regulation on their keeping and importation: bats and pangolins, reptiles and amphibians, and all exotic animals will no longer be allowed to be imported and kept in Italy.

This also represents a concrete step forward in the fight against epidemics and pandemics. An important chapter has also been included covering new restrictions on the trade in domestic animals. The various animal rights organisations — Lav leading the way, having championed the cause for years — expressed great satisfaction, reaffirming the importance of the law and its effects on the world of illegal imports.

An important law

The Covid-19 emergency had already given a decisive push to European resolutions on the prevention and defence against pandemics. With this decisive step forward, exotic animals will no longer be allowed to be imported and kept in Italy, which will also reduce the risk of possible contagion arising from their introduction into the social fabric.

The European delegation law (which contains article 14, letter q), through an amendment tabled first by the leader of Leu, Loredana de' Petris, and with a favourable opinion from the government, has thus definitively enshrined the ban through a series of measures that will have to be in force within twelve months.

No more foxes shut in little domestic cages, snakes and birds of prey imprisoned on perches, amphibians of every kind and sort eking out an existence in makeshift aquariums. And the ban finally puts a stop to years of lucrative animal trading that has, all too often, decimated entire living species and caused the premature death of wild and exotic animals.