2,818 cases of injured wild animals have been registered by inspections in Bulgaria for the past five years, we learn from the first study of its kind on the scale of violations against wildlife in this country, prepared by WWF on the basis of official information from relevant institutions.

Most often these are birds (2089), followed by mammals (307) and reptiles (244). The poaching of wild goats is becoming a threat to the conservation of the species and thousands of birds are falling victim to human interference, conservationists alarmed. There are also data on killed brown bears, which are protected.

"Brown bears are increasingly inclined to change their territorial range due to negative human influence. Easy access to food sources due to improper waste disposal in villages is attractive to them. Once close to a populated area, bears are classified as ‘problematic’. This increases the potential for conflict between humans and bears, as well as the risk of poaching", Veselina Kavrakova, executive director of WWF Bulgaria told BNR Vidin.

The situation with the critically endangered Danube dinosaurs – the sturgeon fish, is also worrying. Having survived for the last 200 million years, today they face a number of threats, such as poaching for the illegal trade of meat and caviar, the construction of water structures that block their migration, the extraction of sand and gravel from the river bed, which leads to the destruction of their spawning grounds. In the long term all this could lead to the disappearance of the last naturally breeding sturgeon populations in Europe, WWF warned and launched its campaign "Common Home. Common Future" for the protection of wild animals in this country.