(Poniente de Granada) The Guardia Civil had been on the trail of a shepherd that was known to be using poison bait in Zafarraya, but when they finally nailed him even they were astounded by the amount and potency of the pesticide that he had been using.

The special unit of the Guardia Civil, Seprona, charged with patrolling the countryside and protecting against poaching and ecological contaminations, amongst other things, had regularly come across dead animals in the Sierra de Tejeda-Almijarra and Alhama, which had evidently died from eating poison bait.

But we’re not only talking about wild animals, but also domestic pets, such as dogs, which is why apart from their own findings, they were receiving reports from pet owners, whose animals barely made it home or died within searching distance.

The joint investigations of Seprona and specialists from the Ministry of the Environment of the Junta de Andalucia, pointed towards one suspect in particular, a shepherd, which led to a sweep of the mountainside above Zafarraya, using especially trained dogs, based in Jaen. The sweep took several hours and located a poisoned cat. Seprona use the same techniques as forensic police when coming across a body, because a lot of evidence can be found for use in a later prosecution.

In this case, a post mortem  turned up a substance whose use is completely prohibited within the European Union since 2007: carbofuran. It is so toxic that you needn’t even ingest it; it can be lethal through physical contact or breathing it in. But even knowing what chemical you are dealing with, it is still extremely hard to actually catch somebody using it – as hard  as trying to catch a poacher using snares, in fact.

So, they contacted local hunters and livestock owners; the latter often use poison bait to keep wild dogs and foxes away from the young of their herds. Before long, the name of a certain shepherd kept cropping up and the suspect, after watching his movements over the course of a month or so, was approached.

He soon admitted to using poisoned bait and showed the police a large demijohn containing a liquid with a very strong smell – it turned out to be carbofuran. The laboratory supplied a report that indicated that the amount of liquid contained was enough to kill 160 healthy adults.

The shepherd, who used the afterbirths of his sheep as poisoned bait, said it was to keep wild dogs away from his animals, but the problem is that this poison in particular is a veritable WMD.

(News: Zafarraya, Pontiente de Granada, Granada, Andalucia)