In many European regions, people may use pesticides, particularly carbamate and organophosphorus insecticides, to deliberately poison wildlife in response to various resource-based conflicts. Repercussions of this largely illegal practice are well-documented in macro-scavengers (vultures). In southern Spain, our environmental agents are trained to gather evidence at suspected scenes of wildlife/environmental crime, including arthropods found at animal carcasses and prepared baits. Between 2008 and 2019, pesticide residues were detected in a subset of pooled or uniquely insect samples (n = 46 instances; 12 consisting solely of arthropods). Four carbamate pesticides and/or associated metabolites were detected: aldicarb/aldicarb sulfoxide, carbofuran/3-hydroxycarbofuran, methomyl/methiocarb, either qualitatively (thin layer chromatography) or quantitatively (liquid/gas chromatography), reaching concentrations of 3.05 mg/kg (aldicarb) and 9.98 mg/kg (methiocarb). Residues have mostly been detected in beetles, but also blowfly, centipede, woodlouse and notably, European honey bee, in a suspected case of deliberate hive poisoning.

Implications for insect conservation: None of the aforementioned information is currently being recorded or disseminated for arthropod conservation purposes. We therefore aimed to (1) generate awareness of the deliberate wildlife poisoning practice as it may affect local necrophagous and associated insect communities; (2) share our process of sample collection, species identification and toxicological analyses to meet wildlife/environmental crime investigation requirements; (3) stimulate interest in collaborative studies to more systematically examine/document any potential effects of the practice on susceptible arthropods species relative to their population status and ecosystem services provision; (4) outline how this additionally gathered entomological information could also be used to strengthen wildlife/environmental forensics investigations.

在许多欧洲地区，人们可能会使用农药（尤其是氨基甲酸酯和有机磷杀虫剂）来对野生生物进行毒害，以应对各种基于资源的冲突。在宏观清道夫（秃鹰）中已充分记录了这种主要为非法行为的影响。在西班牙南部，我们的环保人员经过培训，可在涉嫌野生动植物/环境犯罪的现场收集证据，包括在动物尸体和准备好的诱饵中发现的节肢动物。在2008年至2019年之间，在一部分汇集的或独特的昆虫样本中检出了农药残留（n = 46个实例；其中12个仅由节肢动物组成）。检出了四种氨基甲酸酯农药和/或相关代谢物：涕灭威/涕灭威亚砜，呋喃丹/ 3-羟基呋喃呋喃，灭多威/灭烟威，定性（薄层色谱）或定量（液相/气相色谱），分别达到3.05 mg / kg（涕灭威）和9.98 mg / kg（甲硫威）的浓度。在疑似蜂巢中毒的疑似病例中，大多数残留物已在甲虫中发现，但在蝇、,、木虱，尤其是欧洲蜜蜂中也发现了。

对昆虫保护的意义：当前，出于节肢动物保护目的，没有记录或传播任何上述信息。因此，我们的目的是（1）提高对故意野生动植物中毒行为的认识，因为这可能会影响当地的食尸动物和相关的昆虫群落；（2）分享我们的样本收集，物种识别和毒理学分析过程，以满足野生动植物/环境犯罪调查的要求；（3）激发人们对合作研究的兴趣，以便更系统地检查/记录该做法对易感节肢动物物种相对于其种群状况和生态系统服务提供的任何潜在影响；（4）概述了如何将这些额外收集的昆虫学信息也用于加强野生动植物/环境法证学调查。