Over 400 dogs killed by poison meatballs in truffle wars

 ROME -- Hundreds of sniffer dogs have fallen victim to the “truffle wars” which have erupted in Piedmont, Tuscany and Umbria police say. Due to extreme weather conditions, the already rare and luxurious tuber are more scarce this truffle hunting season than ever before, which has led to an increase in value with prices exceeding the previous 3000 euros per kilo mark.

 This has led to fierce competition within the truffle search areas among hunters, who have begun resorting to the cruel and bizarre method of poisoning each others search dogs by leaving meatballs around search areas filled with snail and rat poison. This method has proven extremely detrimental as an estimated 400 dogs have already been killed according to the Italian authorities quoted by Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper.

  Due to the highly potent poisons being readily available at supermarkets, with one litre sufficing to poison fatally over 100 animals, it has evidently become a cheap and effective way to take out competition, the ruthless hunters have made the poison attractive by hiding them within meatballs and scattering them around the search areas. 

 Truffle searching dogs, which are very expensive and highly-trained from birth to be able to find the precious tuber, are now being equipped by their owners with a bit similar to those worn by horse bridles to stop the animals from swallowing anything before the owner checking it first, il Fatto reported. However, if a dog were unfortunate enough to eat the poison polpette, little can be done to save them as the poison takes effect immediately and leading to death within hours of ingestion. 

 Politicians and authorities within the areas have been outraged upon the news coming out, and have publicly denounced the practice with Stefano Scaccia coining the term "the war for the truffle market."

 "Someone wants very few people to go to the large truffle ground of the Simbruini," he said, "it is absurd".

 In the Langhe area of Piedmonst cecurity guards are being employed to find the meatballs before the dogs, clear the areas and prevent similar episodes from happening in other popular search areas and avert other canine from suffering a similar fate.

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