Italy 8,000 turtle doves fall dead

Italy - Thousands of dead turtle doves rained down on roofs and cars in an Italian town in the latest in a growing spate of mass animal deaths across the globe. Residents in Faenza described the birds falling to the ground with strange blue stains on their beaks.The doves just started falling one-by-one then in groups of 10s and 20s. More…

Stupid News-No sandcastles please, you're in Italy

Stupid News-No sandcastles please, you're in Italy

ROME (Reuters) - When in Capri, don't wander off the beach in a bikini. If you go to the sea in Eraclea, near Venice, remember that building sandcastles is forbidden. And don't even think about mowing your lawn at the weekend in Forte dei Marmi.

Emboldened by a nationwide crackdown on crime and a government decree giving them extra law-and-order powers, Italian mayors have issued a string of often bizarre by-laws to enhance "public decorum."

Public displays of affection in a car can earn you a fine of up to 500 euros ($745) in Eboli, feeding pigeons is off-limits in the centre of Lucca while in Novara groups of more than two people are forbidden from lounging around in parks at night.

Italian newspapers have dubbed this year's holiday season "the summer of bans." But this week one town hall was forced to acknowledge things may have gone too far.

Rodrigo Piccoli, 33, called national radio to protest after he was fined 50 euros for lying down in a park in the northern city of Vicenza to read a book. The mayor has since promised to drop the ban.

(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Stupid News - Bird dung means big business on Peru island

Stupid News - Bird dung means big business on Peru island
VICTORIA BEKIEMPIS, Associated Press Writer
56 minutes ago



ISLA DE ASIA, Peru - It's a dirty job, but people love to do it. Workers toiling 24 days a month loosen, scrape, sift, filter and bag bird dung to make some of the world's finest organic fertilizer — known as guano.

They work in a chilly breeze with the pungent smell of must, salt and ammonia on the Isla de Asia, one of 22 islands where thousands of birds create industry and employment simply by defecating.

"It's fun, everybody does something," said Lucho Moran of Lima, grinning as he moved sacks of guano by cable onto a barge. "It's busy."

Other workers say the job pays well, and they eat free.

Unfazed by the odor and grit, 100 to 150 men work 12-hour days that begin with breakfast at 3:30 a.m.

Workers wear powder from the ruddy dirt like uniforms as they hurl pickaxes into the soil and shovel raw dung, known as "guano bruto." They collect on average 77 tons of guano a day.

Then they sift it over metal mesh to extract the smaller particles that make the grade for fertilizer, which is then bagged and piled onto barges headed to the port of Pisco.

Most guano is used in the fields of Peru, where it costs a fraction of chemical fertilizer.

But about 20 percent is shipped to France, Italy and the United States, said operations manager Cesar A. Teran, where it is a favorite among organic gardeners.