For days, Italy has witnessed yet another bout of misinformation about wolves. A narrative that has involved some of the country's leading newspapers, television programs, commentators, and politicians, contributing to the spread of a story we now know to be false: that of the "hero dog" who supposedly saved a child from a wolf attack.
This morning Camaiore's mayor, Marcello Pierucci, speaking to Canale 5, confirmed what had been circulating for days: no child was ever attacked or approached by a wolf, no person was present outside at the time of the events and no aggression towards humans occurred.
The actual episode is very different. A small dog, outside an unfenced garden, near the woods and without its owners present, interacted with a wolf in the evening hours and was preyed upon. A painful event, certainly, but completely different from what had been reported for days.
Predation by unattended dogs, especially small dogs and those left unattended, is a well-known phenomenon, documented in scientific literature and reported in several European countries. Reporting this is informing. Turning it into yet another "wolf attacks children" story is instead constructing a false narrative.
The most serious aspect is not only that unfounded news was published. It's that this reconstruction was relaunched without adequate verification by major media outlets and political representatives, fueling fear, hostility, and calls for increasingly extreme measures against the wolf.
This is how misinformation is born: a hypothesis becomes a certainty, a suggestion turns into a headline, the headline becomes truth for thousands of people. A denial, unfortunately, will never have the same impact as a fake news story.
And this is precisely the greatest damage. Many citizens will remain convinced that a wolf attempted to attack a child in Camaiore, when this never happened. There's no room for sensationalism when it comes to issues involving public safety and wildlife management. We need rigor, verification, and accountability.
As the "I'm Not Afraid of the Wolf" Association, we will continue to demand that the debate about wolves be based on data, scientific evidence, and accurate reconstructions of the facts, not on stories fabricated to generate fear, consensus, or a few more clicks. Because the problem today is not the "hero dog" that never existed.
The problem is a media outlet that too often fails to verify the facts and a policy that, rather than correcting errors, amplifies them. Someone should have the honesty to apologize for this incident.