As of: February 28, 2024, 11:04 a.m
By: Hanna von Prittwitz
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Sabotage: Unidentified people cut the cables to the “Birdgards” loudspeakers in Altdorf.
The devices have had an impact.
© police
They imitate the frightened cries of crows and are intended to prevent the birds from building more nests: The municipality of Gilching installed two so-called “Birdgards” at the cemetery in Altdorf in April 2022.
Unknown people have now temporarily silenced the devices.
Gilching
– In 2023, ornithologists in Gilching counted 427 pairs of rooks.
This makes the community the largest colony in the district, spread over a total of nine locations.
One of them is at the St. Vitus cemetery in Altdorf.
Because the complaints were particularly frequent there, the municipality has been trying to get the problem under control using various measures since 2022.
Two years ago she installed two “Birdgards”.
These imitate the crows' cries of fear and ensure that the birds build fewer nests there.
The numbers show: the system works.
But now unknown people have cut all the power cables over the weekend.
“They no longer make a sound,” reports Gauting police chief Andreas Ruch in a press release about the “Birdgards” and speaks of sabotage.
The unknown people have cut the 20 meter long power lines that lead to two loudspeakers in the trees.
The cries of corvids could be heard from these four times a day for up to ten minutes.
“It was a lot of noise,” says Christine Hammel, who is responsible for energy, climate and the environment at the Gilching town hall.
However, there have been no complaints about the devices so far, “and they stay off at night”.
The permit for the “Birdgards” lasts until mid-April; they were switched on in the first warm days in February, “when it gets milder and the birds get going,” explains Hammel.
Yesterday the employee was still undecided about what to do next at the cemetery in Altdorf.
The building yard should probably try to fix the cable temporarily.
“It makes no sense to install a new one and then cut it through again,” says Hammel.
She can't really imagine that the campaign is a prank by young people.
Presumably someone was bothered by the noise.
“But we could have talked about that,” says Hammel.
“I would have gone straight away and seen whether it could be made quieter or whether the distances could be changed.” Now the situation has changed.
The fact is that the rooks no longer know where to go.
“And they can’t be driven away with music.”
The “Birdgards” are on loan from the city of Puchheim.
Hammel knows that they had no effect there - in contrast to Gilching.
In 2021 there were still 79 nests in the trees at the cemetery, in 2022 there was only one, and in 2023 there were none at all.
The community not only set up the “Birdgards” but also had old nests removed.
In 2019 there were 26 nests, and the following year there were 27. It is impossible to say with certainty where all the crows suddenly came from.
It is known that displaced crows resettle elsewhere and often form splinter settlements right next door.
Other places with many crow's nests are in Gilching on Landsberger Straße; 81 nests were counted there last year.
There were 34 breeding pairs on Leitenweg near the cemetery; in 2021 there were only nine there.
Residents initially complained about the growing number, but not anymore, says Hammel.
The most nests are on Friedrichshafener Straße, with 283 at last count. This is a so-called taboo area that was designated as part of an inter-communal crow monitoring program.
No deterrent measures are allowed to take place there.
A total of 576 pairs of rooks were counted in the district in 2023, compared to 298 in 2016. The breeding population has been recorded annually since 2008, and the rook has been protected since 1977.