ROEDEER - A BIOINDICATOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINATION

Bioindication is the process of determining the behaviour of foreign, usually harmful substances in ecological systems, using biological ind icators. It is found that under the conditions obtaining in Germany ro edeer are very good bioindicators of environmentally determined residu es and much better suited to investigations of this kind than are farm animals or plants. The short-term and long-term behaviour of heavy me tals. persistent organochlorine compounds and radioisotopes in the env ironment can be followed very well in roedeer. Determination of the dr op in lead contamination of the environment as the result of implement ing legislation is given as an example of this, using trend analysis o f deer livers. The marked ability of high chlorinated PCBs to accumula te in biological food chains. the influence of agricultural measures o n the radiocaesium contamination of game and, in general of foods and the long-term behaviour of radio-caesium contamination in game from un disturbed forest ecosystems contaminated by fall-out are described and discussed.