They live about 90 people and probably one of them is a stork murderer. This small district of (León) has seen how several copies have been found dead in the huge nests that prepare these birds in electric turrets, towers, roofs or any infrastructure. The investigation of the Civil Guard has revealed, crane to climb and cut the current through, that these birds died for bullet impacts, that is, someone has fired a shotgun or a gun or other firearm to end those specimens. The legislation prohibits damaging, and even less killing, a white stork, especially, in this case, because several of them were in the reproduction period.
The investigation is carried out by the territorial service of the Environment of León after the sighting of several dead stork in the nests of Sopeña de Carneros, particularly in some located in concrete poles from which the tension cables are hooked.
The photographs of the intervention reveal a wide deployment: Astorga’s environmental agents participated, firefighters from the Diputación del Parque de Astorga, several members of the SEPRONA and staff of the companies that allowed to act in the electric towers. The company collaborated when cutting the energy, attending the process and evaluating the area in case there were more dead birds or mortal remains of them.
To the nests, several meters high, ascended by an elevator platform that firefighters controlled. The specimens found without life were referred to a nature recovery center, located in Valladolid, to submit them to veterinary necropsy and analysis that demonstrated the suspicion: they had died in a clean shot.
Radiographs, according to the environment area, are “worrying” because in all specimens except in one they have found “the presence of metal sparks compatible with wounds caused by metallic cartridge projectiles, which points to the cranks would have been fired in their own nests”. The birds victims of these shots were adults and there were several females, some of which were forming eggs.
Toxicological analyzes did not capture high levels of pollutants compatible with poisoning, although in one of the stork a very high volume of DDE 4.4 ‘was recorded, a compound derived from the pesticide DDT “whose presence is generally attributed to bioaccumulation processes and not to a direct intoxication”, which reveals that this type of fauna is exposed and much is exposed to toxins. Used for human consumption crops.
The white stork is a protected wild species, since it is found in the list of wild species in special protection regime and subject to broad protection at national and European scale due to its ecological importance and habitat control given its diet of small rodents, some carrots, amphibians or reptiles.
Environment has stressed that any act that can “harm the white stork and its habitats, such as damaging and destroying nests, eggs or chickens, especially during the era of reproduction” is prohibited. This flatly includes death, their capture or trade with both them and with nests, eggs or feathers.
Nor are those actions that can disturb them, particularly in their reproduction and wintering phase. The study of the metallic sparks found in the avian bodies will contribute to clarify the authorship of this serious crime of animal abuse and the details of who could be the cause, which continues to investigate.
