A tragic end for a Saker Falcon from the Banat region

Toro was caught and tagged with a satellite transmitter in 2013 in the Banat region (Romania), as was reported in the news at that time.

On October 2014 we were informed by the monitoring centre that there was a problem with Toro’s GPS transmissions, which were all coming from exactly the same location. Straight away, our colleague went to the location, an alfalfa field, and searched for the bird. Toro was clearly injured and weakened but, aside from a small problem with the bird`s wing, no injuries were immediately apparent. That same day, the bird was bought Tîrgu Mureș, where it was examined by veterinarian Borka Vitális Levente, but the bird couldn`t be saved. The autopsy analysis found that there were numerous parasites, belonging to two species ssp. Capillaria and Eimeria in the digestive system of the bird. At the same time the vet observed some malformations, possible tuberculosis, this was unfortunately confirmed after the laboratory analyses.

The death of Toro means an important loss for the population from the Banat region, he was a breeding male present in the area for 4 years.