The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of ochratoxin A (OTA) in the tissues and organs of wild game. The surveys were carried out between November 2011 and March 2014. The samples were taken from 584 animals: 315 from wild boars (Sus scrofa), 157 from roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) and 112 from deer (Cervus elaphus); a total of 2329 samples, including 584 kidney samples, 584 liver samples, 579 muscle tissue samples and 582 digestive tract content samples. The samples were collected from wild game hunted in four industrial regions of Poland: the Upper Silesian Industrial District, the Turoszów Brown Coal Basin, the Bełchatów Brown Coal Basin, the Legnica-Głogów Copper District, and in the agricultural region of the Lakeland of Warmia-Masuria. The concentration of OTA was determined using a method based on immunoaffinity column clean-up followed by high performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD). The detection limit and the quantification limit were 0.2 and 0.3 µg/kg, respectively. The presence of OTA was detected in 103 samples from wild boars; in 64 samples of kidney, 19 samples of liver, 13 samples of muscle tissue and 7 samples of digestive tract content. Furthermore, OTA was found at low concentrations – from 0.3 to 1.3 µg/kg – in 3 and 2 samples of kidney collected from roe deer and deer, respectively. In contrast, up to about 19% of positive kidney samples from wild boars had higher concentrations of mycotoxin than the action level established in Poland (5 µg/kg); the highest content was 39.6 µg/kg, a mean concentration – 0.69 µg/kg and 95-percentile was 2.7 µg/kg. The content of OTA in liver samples ranged from 0.3 to 26 µg/kg, while in muscle tissue samples from 0.3 to 4 µg/kg. In 22 cases OTA was found in samples of kidney, liver and tissue muscle taken from the same animal. In digestive tract content, OTA was detected at concentrations from 0.3 to 283.3 µg/kg (71.4% of these samples were obtained from the Lakeland of Warmia-Masuria). The results of this study suggest that wild boars are more exposed to OTA than roe deer, deer and even pigs. The organs of wild boars can be contaminated with high concentrations of OTA. This may cause nephropathy in animals and the possibility of toxin carry-over to the food chain.
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