Elections to the board of the Fraunberger Landesbund for Bird Protection were due.
There was also a lecture about the life of the turtle dove, which is not at all romantic.
BY FRIEDBERT HOLZ
Fraunberg
- As Mayor Hans Wiesmaier said, they take care of the "sensitive handling of our native nature": the 23 members of the Fraunberg local group in the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV).
The group that elected the board of directors at its general meeting at Gasthaus Strasser in Oberbierbach has existed for four years.
Except for the post of secretary, who switched from Walter Eschbaumer to Julia Kainz, the management team looks like before: Christian Kainz remains the chairman, his deputy is called Andreas Ploner, Claudia Kainz manages the cash register.
Eschbaumer remains at the top of the club as an assessor.
Due to Corona, the dates for the current year are clear.
Without specifying fixed dates in the calendar, the bird and nature lovers want to continue to take care of the now around 100 nesting boxes and their cleaning in the community.
They maintain the former bathing pond as a biotope, plant individual hedges as a retreat and nesting place for birds and small animals.
“If everything goes well,” says Kainz, “we might be able to hold our traditional New Year's meeting in mid-January, along with a photo exhibition”.
Since its inception, the LBV members in Fraunberg have been committed to protecting biotopes and endangered animals, trying to raise public awareness of environmental protection through lectures and excursions.
And so Wiesmaier thanked the association for its work in the community, "which is not always easy to convey to the outside world".
In these times in particular, it is important to motivate all local stakeholders, such as hunters or garden owners, to participate, and the community will soon also be presenting a maintenance concept for certain areas.
The hard life of the turtledove
It is not only a symbol for the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church, it also stands for love and peace.
And yet their living conditions are far less romantic, as Christian Kainz explained in his lecture.
"The turtledove is still hunted a lot, especially in southern Europe, and well over a million animals are harmed every year".
But even in this country, life is by no means easy for the petite bird, the smallest of almost 300 species of pigeons.
Because land consolidation, monotonous forms of cultivation in agriculture and pesticides are bothering her, and her living space - open forest edges, river meadows or light forests - is becoming more and more restricted.
"She also needs a lot of water regularly, likes to bathe in it and, as a so-called long-distance migrant, has more and more problems at her destination in Central Africa because of severe water shortages," says Kainz.
Because the turtledove leaves our country in winter and flies to the south, where it is increasingly encountering desert land.
Since 1990, its population in Germany has decreased significantly, which is why it is also considered particularly protected under the Federal Nature Act and therefore received the title of Bird of the Year 2020.
Before Christian Kainz gave a short but informative lecture about the turtle dove (see info box above), his wife Claudia, as treasurer, presented the state of the club's finances.
According to this, there was income of around 1500 euros last year, including donations of around 700 euros.
This was offset by expenses of around 1300 euros.
The current cash balance is around 420 euros, significant income and expenses are not expected this year.