Enforcers seize 36.5 kg of mushrooms illegally foraged from Utrecht nature reserve
Enforcement officers and environmental police on Sunday seized 36.5 kilograms of mushrooms illegally foraged from the Utrechtse Heuvelrug nature reserve. Several people were fined. Foraging is illegal in the nature reserve, RTL Nieuws reports.
The people caught had between 200 grams and 14 kilograms of mushrooms on them. One person was found with shopping bags containing 13 kilograms, while another had 14 kilograms in their car.
“It’s absurd that food for the animals that live here is being taken,” an enforcement officer from Utrechts Landschap told RTL Nieuws. “We were shocked by what we found. It’s really going to extremes. The forests are simply being stripped bare.”
“Mushrooms are food for animals. There are spores in the mushrooms. If you pick them, fewer mushrooms will grow back. It disrupts nature,” the officer added.
Whether or not you’re allowed to forage—and for how much—differs per area. In the Utrechts Landschap, for example, you’re allowed to collect up to 250 grams of beech nuts and chestnuts, but picking mushrooms is strictly prohibited.
“The people we spoke to said they weren’t aware that picking mushrooms is strictly prohibited. But at the same time, we noticed that people would take a different path if they saw us approaching, or, for example, leave a bag behind and then claim it wasn’t theirs. This leads us to suspect that people know it’s not allowed.”
The mushroom pickers were fined and the mushrooms seized. They’ll be “returned to their rightful owner, namely nature, in the hope that they can still spread their spores there,” the enforcer said.
Of the mushrooms seized, 3.5 kilograms were identified as fly agaric, a species listed as a drug under List II of the Dutch Opium Act. The individuals involved received official reports for the offense.
According to the police, this action was part of a wider enforcement initiative in the region of East Utrecht, which ran from September 30 to October 5, 2025, targeting various criminal activities, including environmental offenses, human trafficking, and "other forms of undermining public safety."
During the same period, authorities conducted checks on 100 vacation homes in Utrechtse Heuvelrug, finding 41 occupied, as well as discovering 19 nitrous oxide canisters, a person with an outstanding prison sentence, and another with an unpaid fine of 3,000 euros. Authorities also said that in nearby municipalities a “bait box” was placed for ten days to encourage residents to report suspicious activity, though only a single report was received.
