Wildlife biologist Wolfgang Schröder, founding member of the Benediktbeurer Center for Environment and Culture, gives an online lecture about wolves and their return.
Benediktbeuern - As if he had wanted to listen: Shortly before the lecture "Living with wolves: What have we learned?", The message spread that a wolf had been sighted in the Miesbach district.
The video of a car driver showed an animal that, according to the State Office for the Environment, is very likely to be a wolf.
Wildlife biologist Wolfgang Schröder, professor emeritus at the Technical University of Munich and founding member of the Benediktbeurer Center for Environment and Culture (ZUK), gave an online lecture to explain wild animals.
Just recently: Wolf spotted in the Miesbach district
At the beginning, Schröder made a survey among the almost 90 listeners, who is in support of and who is against the return of the wolf. There was a split opinion with a majority of supporters. “The result is very typical,” he explained. Supporters lead a more urban life, opponents are mainly affected farmers. His lecture first clarified about the population and migration of wolves. It has been proven that wolf packs mainly resettled on military training grounds. “The first pack in Austria was on the Allentsteig training area in Upper Austria. In Bavaria it was in Grafenwöhr, ”lectured Schröder. There the wild animals would be tolerated and not shot. Individual young animals migrated from such a pack and sometimes hundreds of kilometers.
"The wolf pays a high price for his return"
Schröder reported on the observation of a student who was able to follow the route of a young wolf using a GPS transmitter: “It ran from Saxony-Anhalt to the Baltic Sea near Rostock.
He turned around and came back to the sea near Husum in North Frisia.
From there he crossed Germany to the east, crossed the Oder and ran to Danzig. ”Within 50 days, the one-year-old wolf covered 1,600 kilometers, crossing 27 highways and 110 country roads.
“It is a miracle that he survived,” says the wildlife biologist.
+
Wildlife biologist Wolfgang Schröder is a professor emeritus at the Technical University of Munich and a founding member of the ZUK.
© bib
The wolf sighted in the neighboring district of Miesbach could thus be a single, roaming animal.
“Many are driven to death.
If you find such a carcass, it is x-rayed and, in addition to broken bones, the researchers often discover shotgun pellets, ”says Schröder.
“The wolf pays a high price for his return.” They were poached, but not because of their fur, but “because rebels rebel against the existing order”.
As an example, the professor from Italy reported where a shot wolf was hung up next to a bus stop.
Farmers not thrilled with the return of the wolf
The wolf is under species protection. Schröder is certain, however, that many wolves would have to be shot in the future. “If you only start from the damage to the grazing animals, then you will not be able to let an increase in the number of wolves run like this.” Where packs regularly lived, expensive protective measures such as long fences would offer security. Projects in Trentino have shown that. In northern Germany, too, many areas are already inhabited by wolves, but in the south there are only wandering wolves for the time being. Incidentally, there were technical problems this time too, after the first date of the lecture had to be omitted (we reported). According to ZUK speaker Martin Blösl, some registrations were not forwarded. The lecture can therefore also be seen on the ZUK website (www.zuk-bb.de). (
BIRGIT BOTZENHART
)
Bad Tölz newsletter:
Everything from your region! Our brand new Bad Tölz newsletter informs you regularly about all the important stories from the Bad Tölz region - including all the news about the corona crisis in your community. Sign up here.