A trial investigating the 2021 slaughter of hundreds of Magellanic penguins in the south of Argentina has got underway.
The unprecedented trial is focused on a local rancher who allegedly crushed hundreds of eggs and chicks of the protected species in order to open up a rural road.
Prosecutor María Florencia Gómez said in her opening argument Monday (October 28) that the accused had engaged in “animal cruelty” and had caused “irreversible” damage to the local flora and fauna.
Using a backhoe excavator, “he removed soil … thus running over eggs and chicks which were in the way,” said the prosecutor.
In the dock is Ricardo La Regina, who is accused of destroying 175 nests, with an average of two eggs per nest, as well as crushing chicks at a nature sanctuary.
The rancher was accused of wrongdoing in a complaint filed in 2021 in Chubut Province in Patagonia, some 1,400 km south of the capital.
Defence lawyer Federico Ruffa said Monday that “no penguin at all had been damaged by the events,” while being interviewed on television.
Local press have dubbed the case “The Punta Tombo penguin slaughter.”
The events allegedly took place in an area adjoining the Punta Tombo–Punta Clara reserve on the Atlantic coast, a natural sanctuary and nesting site for one of the biggest colonies of Magellanic penguins in the world.
Gómez has asked for four years’ imprisonment for La Regina, but the complainant’s lawyer Lucas Micheloud told AFP that he accumulated charges amounted to a 12-year sentence.
“We might say that the maximum penalties will range from four to twelve years,” said Micheloud.
The complainant and the prosecution believe the accused may have destroyed 175 nests, with an average of two eggs per nest, in addition to crushed chicks.
La Regina, in turn, said on Monday on television that the way he proceeded “was not the right one.”
He argued that “there was no other way because the State was absent for over 10 years,” during which he claimed for roads to be opened up and the boundaries between the field he manages and the reserve to be clarified.
Defence lawyers have offered earlier to make available 560 hectares of land adjoining to Punta Tombo reserve to the national government, along with an agreement of a protection zone in Punta Clara in order to settle the trial.
The court rejected the offer.
The trial might last at least one week and a half, and 60 witnesses are expected for both parties, informed the Chubut Public Prosecution.
The complaint was filed by the provincial government, which was then joined by the Association of Environmental Lawyers and such NGOs as Greenpeace.
– TIMES/AFP
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