57 Wildlife accidents in the Isar valley: the tragic series should come to an end this year
Created: 01/12/2022, 05:35 AM
From: Josef Hornsteiner
Total loss: This is what the completely demolished car looked like after the game accident on October 29 at Gerold - there were 57 in total in the Isar Valley in 2021.
The Bavarian State Forests are currently working intensively on a solution.
© Krün fire department
A sad record: there were exactly 57 accidents involving wildlife in the Isar valley in 2021 - more than ever before.
The Bavarian State Forests and authorities are now working intensively on a solution that will be presented to the public before spring.
Isar valley
- they catch the eye. Everyone who drives their car on Tyrol's country roads knows the huge posters that warn of deer crossing. A stag and a deer are depicted on it. Your eyes shine, reflecting the light from the car headlights. “Could you brake now?” Is written about it.
Every time Tessy Lödermann drives past it, she presses the brakes again and drives slower than she already does.
"You think about it," says the second deputy of the district administrator, chairwoman of the animal welfare association Garmisch-Partenkirchen and director of the local animal shelter.
"You are already thinking: could I still brake now?"
For Lödermann, the posters could well be a solution to a problem that opened up in the Isar valley last year.
Day trippers are increasingly frightening wild animals in the forest
There were a total of 57 accidents with wildlife there in 2021. Most of them on the state road between Klais and Mittenwald and on the federal road between Krün and Gerold. Lödermann knows the reasons are many and varied. The high number of visitors in the forests and the nature in the Isar valley are a particular problem if the game is scared away.
But simply putting up signs or posters on the state and federal road is anything but easy, explains Nadine Heiss from the Weilheim State Building Authority.
The big warning signs in Tyrol "are not official signs," she notes.
"So they are not set up by us as road construction authorities." In principle, "wildlife accident posters" can be set up at the request of the district tenant, explains Heiß.
“We support such requests, of course.” The selection of the locations would have to be made in close consultation with the police, traffic authorities and the state building authority, “as this must not endanger safety and lightness”.
For example, such posters should not obstruct the view.
"The topic is very present, we think hard about it"
Martin Echter, Mittenwald's district forester
The Bavarian State Forests are currently working on a solution in the background.
Mittenwald's district forester Martin Echter does not yet reveal whether these signs are in place.
"The topic is very present, we think hard about it," says Echter.
The state forests want to present to the public before spring what the solution will look like.
Experience has shown that deer crossings increase again.
Danger to animals and humans are inevitable.
Deer and roe deer like to lick road salt off the road - they need minerals for the upcoming coat change.
“It is important to always keep an eye on the roadside,” says Lödermann.
Especially at dusk.
That no people were harmed in the past year is actually a miracle.
The force with which a red deer hits the front of a car at 60 km / h is equivalent to the weight of a full-grown elephant: five tons.
You can't keep the animals away.
“The Schmalensee is an ancient location for deer crossing,” explains Lödermann.
The animals there have always come from the forests to drink at the Schmalensee.
Man has built a road, but the instinct of animals doesn't care.
Just like the changeover from summer to winter time, which, according to Lödermann, shifts rush-hour traffic into twilight - and thus into the main game change period.
