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bird, and I spent a second night holding C15's body and head, hoping he would survive. During
the following day, his state deteriorated until he eventually died of respiratory failure. Before he
died, I even tried to revive C15, mouth to beak, because I was desperate. At that time, I did not
know what poison had caused his death, and while at the centre we made hundreds of calls asking
for help and advice, but no one then believed that griffon vultures could be poisoned.
The symptoms of C15, and those of other griffon vultures that followed him, led us to suspect
poisoning was being caused by organophosphorus or carbamate compounds (OP/CB). Finding a
laboratory to prove this was, however, diffi cult. C15 was the fi rst bird brought to the Recovery
Centre with such neurological symptoms (which are typical of OP/CB poisoning; as also detailed
in Chapter 2), but for him we were not able to confi rm poisoning in the laboratory. However, at that
time, no laboratories in the country were set up to test tissues from wild birds suspected to have
been poisoned.
The Committee for 'illegal poisoning in nature' was established within the Ministry of
Environmental Protection and Physical Planning on 20 March 2001. Within the Committee were
experts (hunters, veterinarians, policemen, doctors, ornithologists, foresters, biologists and toxi-
cologists) who made proposals regarding illegal poisoning in nature. Unfortunately, the work of
the Committee was halted after elections were held in 2003 and the government changed. The
Minister who was elected showed no interest in the poisoning issue at all. The Department for
Nature Protection also changed quickly to the Ministry of Culture. Since C15, many cases of illegal
OP/CB use have been detected, often involving carbofuran. Such cases and some of our other expe-
riences are outlined in this section. To provide geographical perspective, a map detailing the areas
mentioned in this section is provided (see Figure 5.14).
Figure 5.14
Map of Croatia, prepared by John C. Nelson and Wayne E. Thogmartin, United States
Geological Survey, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center
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