03/07/2006 (Agence Europe) - The MEP Iles Braghetto (EPP-ED, Italy) has called on the European Commission to state whether Germany had violated the provisions on wildlife featuring in the 1992 directive on the conservation of natural and semi-natural habitats, by killing the brown bear which had escaped from the Adamello Nature Park in Italy. In a press release (our translation throughout), the MEP points out that even the Pope had called for attempts to capture the bear (named "Bruno") without killing him, to take him back where he had come from. "Since the early 1900s, the brown bear, the victim of crazed hunts" had practically disappeared throughout the Alps, with only a few remaining in Trentin, a region "where the repopulation of the Adamello Brenta wildlife park had been a success, with European Union funding", in bringing this kind of bear back into the region, said Mr Braghetto, who said: one of these bears "had the unfortunate idea of crossing the Italian border, in the belief that it would find itself in territory (firstly Austria, then German: Ed) where it would be protected in the same way".