Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
heliaca
) were most affected. There are two groups of perpetrators in Austria. First, there are hunters
who poison animals such as foxes and martens because they view them as competitors. Small game
hunting is practiced by farmers, local people and businessmen alike and it is especially popular in the
lowlands of eastern Austria. Many hunters there believe that if they reduce the number of foxes and
martens, the hare and pheasant populations will thrive (a situation encountered throughout Europe,
as refl ected in the other sections in this chapter). Then, there are often disputes between neighbours
in settlement areas which may lead to retaliation, for example one person poisoning the dog of
his neighbour (another common scenario across Europe). In this case, most of the poisoning inci-
dents are reported from open landscape (as opposed to settlements), however, baits are rarely left in
open fi elds. Instead, they tend to be placed near feeding stations for game, close to hunting towers,
along hedges and fi eld margins, near tracks and roads, often close to hunting territory borders. Dogs
out for walks often come into contact with poisons this way.
5.4.2 Initiatives underway to generate awareness about, and monitor
incidents of, carbofuran-related wildlife mortality in Austria
The poisoning incidents of the 1990s led World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Austria, together with
BirdLife Austria and the animal advocacy NGO 'Vier Pfoten' (translation: Four Paws) to initiate
the 'Vorsicht Gift!' project (translation: 'Beware Poison!' (see http://www.wwf.at/de/seeadler/ and
http://hilfe.lebensministerium.at/article/articleview/42661/1/7135, the website of the Ministry of the
Environment, and see Figure 5.2). The project began in 1999, with the overall aims of generating
awareness about the illegal use of carbofuran against mammalian and avian predators, improving
the prosecution rate against offenders and reducing poisoning incidents overall. A major reason for
WWF involvement in the poisoning issue was the fact that poisoned baits emerged as a serious threat
to endangered raptors such as the white-tailed eagle and the Imperial eagle. Indeed, the populations
of both species had just started to recover when the poisoning wave began, causing an unsustainable
number of casualties.
Since 2003, the project has been fi nancially supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry of
Environment and conducted in close cooperation with the Austrian Hunters Association (www.ljv
.at), the police and the Raptor and Owl Rehabilitation Centre of Haringsee (www.egsoesterreich
.org). The project consists of four elements:
1. Documenting poisoning incidents
2. Operating the 'Beware Poison!' hotline
3. Coordinating the 'Beware Poison!' network
4. Conducting media outreach and raising awareness
WWF Austria has created and is maintaining a database to document and monitor wildlife poi-
soning over the long term. Interested parties may obtain information from the database by written
request from WWF Austria. Since the campaign began in 1999, carbofuran (which was banned in
Austria as per EU Directive 2007/416/EC) has been detected in nearly 80% of the poisoning cases,
whether as the cause of death or in regurgitated matter. In some cases, the regurgitate of dogs suc-
cessfully treated for poisoning was analysed and in other cases, dogs were sampled because they pre-
sented symptoms that were typical of carbofuran/carbamate poisoning and their condition improved
after treatment (refer to Chapter 2 for a discussion on symptoms and treatment). Strychnine and zinc
phosphide, which were (and still are) used as rodenticides, were detected in the remaining 20% of
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