Man confesses to shooting dead rare bear

(ANSA) - L'Aquila, September 19 - A man who said he had been recently wounded by a bear confessed to investigators Friday that he shot dead a rare Marsican brown bear in Abruzzo one week earlier.
    "It was me," said the man, identified only as A.C., 57, authorities reported.
    He may face charges of killing a member of a protected species, they added.
    An autopsy Thursday showed the male bear, whose body was found last Friday, had been shot and not poisoned, as earlier thought.
    The bear was found near a cycling trail near Pettorano sul Giziom, riddled with buckshot, the autopsy found.
    Meanwhile, the head of the World Wildlife Fund Italy, Donatella Bianchi, has written to the governor of Trento province Ugo Rossi to express "great concern" about two orphaned bear cubs whose mother Daniza was given an accidental overdose of tranquillizers by forestry workers in Trentino.
    Bianchi said the eight-month-old cubs need to be properly cared for over at least two years, and as winter approaches they must be shown how to hibernate.
    She also asked for a public investigation into Daniza's death, an event that triggered widespread outrage with many questioning why officials wanted to tranquilize and capture the mother bear.
    It is believed she was defending her cubs when she smacked a man gathering mushrooms in the Trentino area in August.
    The man was not seriously injured.
    Officials in the town of Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy's north have said the community could take in the two orphaned cubs.
    They made the fostering offer at the request of the European Animal Rights Party (PAE).