Croatia: three kilos, and a hundred grams of truffle

Croatia is the only country in this set whose daily limit depends on where the fruit body grows. The regulation on collecting native wild species, published in Narodne novine number 114 of 2017, sets two entirely different figures.

Article seven, paragraph two, allows a person to collect for their own needs up to three kilograms of above-ground mushroom fruit bodies per day, and up to a hundred grams of underground fruit bodies. The same exception is attached to both limits: if a single fruit body weighs more than the limit, the collector may take it, provided no other fruit bodies have already been gathered.

That exception is a drafting detail and it solves a real problem. Without it, finding one four-kilogram fruit body would automatically make a picker an offender, although they had taken exactly one specimen. The provision therefore says: a single specimen is always allowed, but then the basket has to be otherwise empty.

The thirty-fold difference between three kilograms and a hundred grams states plainly what is at stake. Underground fruit bodies are truffles, and truffles in Croatia, especially in Istria, have an economic dimension incomparable with the rest of the harvest. A hundred grams is an amount for one's own table and nothing beyond it, so the limit separates commercial from domestic collecting by means of the figure alone, without creating a separate regime.

Collecting for personal needs, on the other hand, requires no official consent. Article seven, paragraph one, states outright that no ministry permit need be obtained for collecting native wild species for personal needs.

The method of collecting is regulated separately. Article seventeen permits, for above-ground mushrooms, only picking by hand or cutting with a knife, and expressly excludes spades, rakes, hoes and similar tools.

Three conclusions follow for a visitor. For above-ground mushrooms the limit is among the more generous in Europe and requires no formalities. For truffles the limit is symbolic and has to be taken seriously, because it is what distinguishes a tourist from a poacher. And the tool in hand should be a knife, not a rake.

A quantity limit comes with a leave-behind rule

Croatia defines personal collecting as non-commercial use by the collector and household. No ministry permit is required up to three kilograms per day of above-ground fruit bodies and 0.1 kilogram of underground fungi, but habitat rules still apply. A collector must leave one third of fruit bodies of each gathered species untouched. Minimum sizes apply to chanterelles, black trumpets, porcini, Suillus, saffron milkcaps and morels. Underground fungi may be sought with no more than two dogs, digging only where a dog indicates, with a small blade, and every hole must be refilled. Truffle collecting is prohibited from 22:00 to 06:00. The quota is only one part of a detailed harvesting method.