An Italian environmental organisation has offered a reward of 24,000 euros (£21,000) for information leading to the arrest of the killers of wild wolves in Tuscany.

The corpses of two animals were strung up by the neck from a road sign outside the village of Radicofani in the picturesque Val d’Orcia, south of Siena.

The macabre display appears to have been a protest – possibly by a farmer or landowner – against the damage done by wolves to livestock.

The reward has been offered by the Italian Association for the Defence of Animals, which has set up a special telephone hotline for people to provide information.

The association says the money will be paid to “whoever can help to identify and convict those responsible for the killing and hanging of the wolves.”

Canis lupus was on the verge of extinction in Italy until 1971, when the species was given protected status. There are now an estimated 1,500-2,000 wolves roaming the Alps and the Apennine mountains.

It was recently revealed that a small pack of wolves is living just outside Rome, the first time the species has established a presence near the capital in more than a century.