Severe bird poisoning at Lake Balaton

One of the most serious poisoning of the last twenty years has been committed against protected birds and other animals in the area of the Balaton Uplands National Park, kisalfold.hu told.

The dead animals’ value is more than 1 million forints in total – the zoological and ecological official of the Balaton Uplands National Park Directorate said to MTI on Wednesday.

Peter Szinai told that they found the animal carcasses in the lawn area next to Nagydem. There were newer and older ones as well, so it is suspected that the poisoning of animals has lasted for months.

He added the main targets of the destruction could be the birds that live there in large numbers because of their important food, the voles. The bait was placed in open space, so the birds could notice it from afar.

According to kisalfold.hu, the expert said: 23 common buzzards, 9 ravens, one tawny owl, two foxes and one domestic cat have been poisoned. 4 pheasants and one pigeon have been placed as poisoned baits.

The ranger of the park went out to the scene last Sunday, based on a residential notification. The scene inspection continued in cooperation with the professionals of the Directorate, the police and the Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society (MME), helped by a sniffer dog – the zoological and ecological official said. The police initiated investigation on abuse with poison and nature damage.

Peter Szinai said that common buzzards do cause neither wildlife management damages nor other types of damages, since it eats voles. Thus, damages cannot explain this action.

In the area of the Balaton Uplands National Park,  the last poisoning happened two years ago: at that time white-tailed eagles were poisoned in Somogy County. That was called a secondary poisoning, because the birds ate poisoned fox carcasses, kisalfold.hu wrote.

Hundreds of similar cases have happened in the last 20 years, but the perpetrators have to be caught in order to be convicted by the court, so nobody has been jailed or fined so far.

Source: http://www.kisalfold.hu