Local specialities, Szeged fishermen's soup and Upper Tisza fishermen's soup, were often in competition with each other, but both were considered better than Danube fish soup. Activists from the Hungarian Society for the Protection of Birds found a dead eagle, one of only seven that had survived the years of intensive agriculture in the region. This is a great loss, as the population of this endangered species may well now collapse. During the period when dead fish covered the river, Hungarian nature conservationists and their foreign colleagues offered the birds food, thus preventing them from eating the poisoned fish. The food was donated by zoos across the country.
Experts say that the worst is still to come.
Many animals are still hibernating, their metabolisms slowed. As the summer approaches, they will awake and find nothing to eat. Other mammals, like otters, live in dens, and may well have disappeared already without anyone noticing. No one has any answers. The scientists said what they knew, and the final result of the meeting was that nothing can be done at present to restore extinct ecosystems.