These latest deaths of fish and water birds have a common denominator – the human factor, claims Mihael Toman from the Biotechnical Faculty.
Regarding the Tojnica stream, where the water was said to have been brown and foul-smelling, Toman says: ‘It is possible that manure was spread too close to the stream or that tanks for its transport were cleaned out there.’ This has already happened before and fish died as the result of a lack of oxygen.
In the case of the deaths of gulls on Lake Ptuj, Toman does not exclude the possibility that the birds had been feeding at nearby fields and meadows, where they ingested a poisonous substance."Or perhaps the problem was intense fertilising with urea or something similar... It is unlikely that the birds died as the result of botulism, but there were neurotoxins, produced by bacteria living in the mud," said Toman.