Imotski Svitnjak brings us more info on these beautiful animals
It might be ten years since Mario Žužul and Marko Bilić raised alert about the ecocide, that occurred in the Vrljika basin. The highest price paid cancers and the endemic trouts. These young people knew about places, where the Austropotamobius pallipes still lived in the Badnjevice canyon, and kept them secret. They tried to spread the animal downstream, but with no success for years.
The fact is, that the winery, producing methyl alcohol from dates imported from North Africa, caused an unseen plague of cancers, which were in that catastrophic week fleeing in waves from the water to the shore, where they formed a red edge almost along the entire river. It was an apocalyptic event and apocalyptic scene, but the analysis of the water and the soil did not happen due to the political ban of the local authorities.
Credit for the survival of this rare cancer certainly goes Mario, Marko and many others young men, who transferred these animals from to the upper Badnjevice lakes, checking regularly the state of population and hiding them from those, who would give anything in the world to have one for dinner.
However, in recent years, cancers are appearing even in the downstream (we will not reveal to which point, because one can not be cautious enough). The fact is, that the population is large enough and that they are surviving and multiplying.
It is encouraging, that this cancer is still living in its indigenous habitat, the river Vrljika. All habitants of the Imotski region are drinking water coming from this river. Thus, our destiny is connected and it depends solely on us humans, the people from Imotski and the state of our environmental awareness..
(photos: Luka Kolovrat / Imotski Svitnjak)
