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driven hunt
Photo: IMAGO/Reiner Bernhardt
In the woods around Berlin, where foxes and rabbits usually say good night, a battle is raging that is fought not just with words, but with weapons.
Brandenburg's hunters are divided.
It's about shooting or skimming, forest or game, saving the global climate or preserving a culture of hunters.
Two hunters meet: At least one is likely to see red.
The cause of the dispute is the deer, Capreolus capreolus, subfamily of false deer.
For some it is the animal of the year 2019. For others it is an enemy of the forest because it attacks the young shoots from which a healthy, ecologically beneficial mixed vegetation is supposed to grow.
There is talk of a deer plague.
The Greens in the Brandenburg state parliament, who are concerned about forest and climate, have therefore teamed up with the members of the ecological hunting association to create a new hunting law.
Thousands of deer are also to be shot.
"Not eradicate, but drastically reduce," says the chairman of the eco-hunters Mathias Graf von Schwerin.
In his territory, he pays young hunters a premium of 50 euros per animal.
Now, as an outsider, you might think that hunters don't need much convincing to shoot deer.
What else is the can for?
But the green draft law meets with fierce resistance from traditional hunters.
The plan is hostile to wild animals, social structures of pack animals would be brutally shot, it would produce "thousands of animal suffering," according to the German Hunting Association.
The conservatives also fear for the customs that would be lost if hunting was trimmed for efficiency.
The ritual laying of the prey on a bed of spruce green, the ceremonial blowing of the hunting horn, preferably by torchlight: the eco-fraction thinks little of such magic.
Here the prey is taken to the cold store as quickly as possible to keep the game fresh.
The Greens want to kill animals, the Conservatives tend not to - wrong world in the forest.
Selfish motives may also play a role in the dispute, on both sides.
In the organic faction, many forest owners are represented in green coats, from whom the deer nibbles away the yield.
In the traditional camp, on the other hand, they sometimes pretend to love animals, when in reality it's about trophies.
Yes, you let one of two bucks run free.
See you next year when he wears more impressive antlers.
Brandenburg's Green Minister of Forestry is currently making a new attempt for the hunting law, but the mood is poisoned.
Eco-hunter boss Schwerin reports that two of his dogs have even been kidnapped;
he only found her days later, without her GPS transmitter, tied to a pole.
Or does Mother Nature herself provide a solution?
In some areas, the number of deer is said to be declining recently.
Thank the wolf.