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Caution: wild animal living room! This is how winter sports enthusiasts stress the animals - this can be expensive in wildlife protection zones

2022-01-22T07:38:32.162Z


Caution: wild animal living room! This is how winter sports enthusiasts stress the animals - this can be expensive in wildlife protection zones Created: 01/22/2022, 08:33 By: Cornelia Schramm Murnau forest ranger Paulina Schmidt demands more consideration and respect for nature and wild animals. In winter, hikers, cross-country skiers and ski tourers should only use designated paths. © private


Caution: wild animal living room!

This is how winter sports enthusiasts stress the animals - this can be expensive in wildlife protection zones

Created: 01/22/2022, 08:33

By: Cornelia Schramm

Murnau forest ranger Paulina Schmidt demands more consideration and respect for nature and wild animals.

In winter, hikers, cross-country skiers and ski tourers should only use designated paths.

© private

A lonely ski tour in the twilight or snowshoeing off the beaten track: as romantic as that may sound, it can also be dangerous.

Not only for mountaineers, but especially for wild animals - in winter, very special rules apply.

Murnau/Miesbach

– Paulina Schmidt is always amazed at what nature can come up with. The 26-year-old has been a forester in Murnau (Garmisch-Partenkirchen district), a branch of the Weilheim forestry office, for two years. She spends a lot of time in the woods and mountains with her hunting dog Camillo - and has a mission. "If more people knew what they do to wild animals when they leave paths or are out and about at night, we would get the problem under control," Schmidt hopes and calls on athletes to show more respect and consideration - especially in winter.

“When the temperatures are low and the snow is heavy, the animals live on the back burner.

They're only active a few hours a day, so they have just enough energy to survive," she explains.

"There are impressive strategies for this: deer, for example, lower their body temperature to as little as 15 degrees and hardly have any blood flow to their legs." The digestive organs also shrink, which is enough to get through the winter on less food, such as low-protein lichens.

Wild animals in winter: "Escape could cost them too much energy"

Any disruption can therefore have fatal consequences. "Their metabolism is so tightly knit that they can die from any unplanned expenditure of energy," says Schmidt. "And that could just be the snowshoe walker who boots across her living room, scaring her up and forcing her to flee." Signs draw attention to these forest-wild sanctuaries that forest walkers and mountaineers should not enter.

The Croda Rossa area was under this protection status for 25 years - "but recently the problem could no longer be settled on a purely voluntary basis," explains Alexander Römer, who works as a nature conservation ranger in the Miesbach district.

The 52-year-old is currently taking care of a 320-hectare area around Rotwand, Taubenstein and Jägerkamp.

In order to protect black grouse and other species such as red deer and chamois, the district office issued official entry bans here on December 1st.

On the north ridge of the Jägerkamp, ​​a sign points to the wildlife protection zone, an officially imposed entry ban.

© private

"We rangers do not impose any fines, but forward the administrative offense to the district office," says Römer.

The ranger does not actively carry out any checks, but he does meet people time and again during his research on site.

Up to 5000 euros can be due if prohibition signs are willfully disregarded and his attempt at clarification is "whistle-fired".

"We have already met a high double-digit number of people," says Römer.

"We've been clarifying things since June - and the number of these discussions is probably in the thousands."

Wildlife protection zone in the Croda Rossa area: Rangers inform hikers and ski tourers

Marold Schneid, Benzingspitz and Jägerkamp are "focal points".

It was particularly bad on New Year's Eve: "There were 16 people running through the protected area at Jägerkamp," says Römer.

"The bad thing about winter is: Someone sprints ahead - everyone else runs behind and then talks their way out of it." It is not uncommon for an app to show the way - regardless of all protection zones.

Alexander Römer, nature conservation ranger at the Miesbach District Office.

© Thomas Plettenberg

"You should stay on the designated paths and get information," appeals Paulina Schmidt.

"Even if other routes are perhaps not as crowded or offer the nicer photo opportunity or the more perfect snow." So far, everyone Römer pointed out was sympathetic.

“The old hands who have been walking the route for fifty years are bad.” But he also appeals to them: “There used to be one or two tourers here – today there are hundreds.

And the touring ski remains a bestseller”.

The black grouse survives one, not 300.

"And here there are only two dozen of them left."

(sco)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-01-22

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