The Fluoride Content of Antlers as an Indicator of Fluoride Exposure in Red Deer (Cervus elaphus): A Historical Biomonitoring Study

Bone fluoride concentrations were analyzed in 141 red deer antlers grown between the 17th/early 18th century and 1997, that originated from four study areas (Arnsberg, Bad Berleburg, Dämmerwald, Schmidtheim) in the federal state of North Rhine–Westphalia, Germany. Fluoride concentrations in the specimens ranged between 27.7 and 1,392.1 mg F−/kg ash and varied significantly both between samples collected during different time-spans in the same area and between samples taken from different study areas over the same period. For antlers (n = 8) collected prior to 1860 in the study areas Arnsberg and Schmidtheim, values between 27.7 and 78.7 mg F−/kg ash were recorded. It is assumed that antler fluoride contents in this range are quite close to baseline levels for these regions, i.e., represent concentrations largely unaffected or only slightly influenced by fluoride from anthropogenic sources. With the onset and expansion of large-scale industrial activities, bone fluoride concentrations in the antler samples markedly increased over these baseline values, indicating fluoride deposition from industrial emissions into the red deer habitats. In the later 1980s and the 1990s, a pronounced decline in antler fluoride content was observed, which is attributed to the reduction of industrial fluoride discharges due to effective emission control programs. However, even the lowest fluoride values recorded for antlers grown in the 1990s (study area Schmidtheim, n = 10, range 158.5–367.3 mg F−/kg ash) clearly exceeded the concentrations found in the antlers collected prior to 1860, thereby indicating an additional fluoride burden from anthropogenic sources on the recent populations. The present study has corroborated the view that antlers are good indicators of fluoride exposure in deer. The facts that they grow during a seasonally fixed time-span and thus constitute relatively well “naturally standardized” samples and are often kept over long periods of time make antlers suitable monitoring units for historical biomonitoring studies.