Roe Deer Antlers as a Historical Bioindicator of Lead Pollution in the alek Valley, Slovenia

Antlers of different deer species are of particular importance for assessing temporal and\or spatial variations in environmental pollution with bone-seeking pollutants, such as Pb. Since antlers have a well-defined annual growth cycle, they accumulate Pb during a seasonally fixed time span, which provides natural standardisation of samples. Moreover, they are kept as trophies in well-dated collections enabling their use in historical studies. Considering these benefits, Pb levels were determined (by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry after the wet digestion of samples) in 116 antlers of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus L.), shot in the period 1961–2002 in the vicinity of the largest Slovene thermal power plant of otanj (TPP). Irrespective of the year of antler growth and the age of the animal analysed (no age-dependent influences were revealed), Pb levels ranged from 0.20 to 7.28 mg kg-1 (mean: 1.32 (plus_minus) 0.19 mg kg-1), with the highest contents in the oldest and the lowest contents in the most recent samples. Since the mid-1960s, lead pollution has continuously decreased in the study area; three very evident drops (after 1975, 1985 and 1995, respectively) indicate the combined effect of three different remediation measures as follows: construction of a remote heating system in the seventies; introduction of unleaded petrol in the late-1980s, and construction of clean-up devices at the TPP in the late-1990s. The high positive correlation between the annual emissions from the TPP and the mean yearly Pb levels in antlers showed that roe deer antlers may be an useful tool for assessing temporal trends of ambient Pb pollution.