Italy’s prized white truffles sell for big money in fancy restaurants. But there’s a deadly cost

Rome (CNN) — The massacre was silent, the assassins stealthy and the impact devastating.

The victims: more than 30 dogs, highly trained to sniff out the valuable truffles that grow underground near the dank and musty roots of trees in central Italy’s rural Abruzzo and Molise regions.

They were poisoned last weekend, according to the local Carabinieri police force’s animal protection unit. The dogs ate meatballs laced with what is believed to be metaldehyde and strychnine that were strategically hidden where the dogs would find them, out of sight of their owners.

It’s not the first time sniffer dogs have been sacrificed in the murky world of truffle hunting. Around 10 truffle dogs are killed across Italy each year on average, animal rights groups say. The number could be higher as many deaths go unreported, according to local hunting associations.

Hunters fear that killing three times the average in one go is meant to send a message.

Rising prices

Such deaths have cast a shadow over the multimillion dollar network of hunters and traders that supplies Italian white truffles to some of the world’s most exclusive restaurants. They also raise questions about what hunters’ groups say is one of the least regulated of Italy’s traditional produce sectors.

All this comes at a time when changing weather patterns caused by the climate crisis is shrinking supplies of truffles, pushing prices ever higher. White truffles need damp, musty forests and fields to prosper, and record heat and stifling droughts have impacted this season more than ever in Italy.

Meanwhile, global demand by gourmets for the pungent tuber has skyrocketed in recent years, driving up prices.

A hunter with a skilled sniffer dog can earn thousands of dollars a day during the truffle season, which generally runs from September to November. In 2022, a half-pound truffle fetched $200,000 in an auction in Alba, Italy. At a current market value of $2,200 per pound, the white truffle is by far one of the most expensive foods in the world. Once turned into delicacies, they often sell for more than $400 for a tasting menu in cities such as San Francisco and London.

“That’s the price of the white truffle some pontified waiter shaves on your plate in Tokyo, or New York, or London,” Simon Martin, a professor of modern Italian history and licensed truffle hunter, told CNN. “That’s it: a dog convulsing and vomiting in a backstreet car park in the middle of Molise.”

Martin, who considers himself an amateur, says it boils down to the economics controlling the market.

Hunters, known as “tartufai,” sell their truffles to middlemen who then sell them on to restaurants, exporters or private chefs. Truffle hunters need to pass a test to get a certificate that allows them to hunt on any public land. They are required to follow rules, including keeping their dogs muzzled.

Deepening intrigue

The mystery of who is behind the poisonings is the real bone of contention in this saga, with different players in the truffle supply chain blaming each other.

One hunter told CNN that no local hunters were active at the time of the poisonings, even though it was the height of the white truffle season. CNN agreed to speak to the hunter on the condition of anonymity, as the hunter feared reprisals from other hunters. CNN was not able to verify whether any hunters were indeed active in the area at the time, but local hunters who spoke to CNN, also on the condition of anonymity, denied foreknowledge of the poisonings.

Police confirmed that the victims were all dogs from elsewhere in the country who had come to the area after large white truffles had recently been found.

An investigation has been opened over the deaths. But to date, not a single person has been arrested or convicted over previous dog killings.

Part of the reason is that dog owners rarely press charges when their dogs are killed, the local animal rights group say. Some may not have registered, licensed or microchipped their dogs properly in accordance with hunting regulations, and in other cases, the dogs weren’t wearing the muzzles that are required of hunters, police say.

Others stay silent out of fear of retaliation, says Riccardo Germani, a third-generation truffle farmer who is president of Italy’s National Association of Truffle Hunters. Slashing tires and even blowing up pickups is not uncommon in the truffle hunting world, he says.

Code of silence

So far, none of the owners of the 30 dogs killed last weekend come forward to file a complaint, the local prosecutor’s office told CNN, prompting calls from the Italian Association for Animal Protection and Environment, or AIDAA, for prosecutors to act.

It wants the area where the poisoning took place to be closed for a year to truffle hunting animals in case there is still poison hidden in the underbrush. It has also called on hunters to break their code of silence.

“We are concerned about the health of the dogs and the death of 30 of them must not go unnoticed as if it were an affair that only interests truffle hunters,” the group wrote in a letter addressed to the local hunters associations, seen by CNN.

“Thirty dogs dying in a few days is a massacre and we believe it is appropriate for the truffle hunters to speak, because we think that some of them have more than one suspicion about the name of the author or authors of the massacre, therefore they put aside the silence and go to the prosecutor’s office to spill the beans.”

The associations, of which there are many, instead want authorities to do the digging. “Let’s not talk about a war between truffle hunters, this is a real massacre,” Fabio Cerretano, the national president of the National Federation of Italian Truffle Associations, said in a statement after last weekend’s killing spree.

“It is a madman, a criminal who carried out this shameful gesture killing off dozens of truffle hunters [dogs] to remain alone to search for truffles in that area.”

Bogus ‘Italian’ truffles

Germani, the president of Italy’s National Association of Truffle Hunters, told CNN that the dead dogs are the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s wrong in the truffle hunting sector.

He says there is a lack of transparency about where truffles come from when hunters sell them on, including the importation of truffles from such far reaches as Iran, Afghanistan and, more locally, Croatia, that end up being certified for sale as Italian products.

“There are few controls in the world of truffle hunting,” he told CNN. “And we need controls, the state doesn’t do it, so we have to do it ourselves.”

In a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture sent after the dog massacre, he wrote, “The Italian truffle sector, one of our national excellencies, is suffering not only due to illegal and cruel practices, but also due to a lack of proper recognition and valorization.”

Germani has called for the installation of cameras to monitor areas where poisonings take place but says further measures must be put in place.

“It is essential that the government intervenes to ensure searching for truffles remains a sustainable and ethical practice and not a business for few criminals. This cultural and gastronomic heritage deserves greater protection and promotion, to preserve its integrity and secure its future.”

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