WAs the flood situation in Lower Saxony continues to ease, the consequences for wild animals are becoming visible. “We find dead deer and rabbits every day,” says Antje Dahlweg, head of the Achim hunting ring near Bremen – an association of hunters at a local level. Because of the risk of pathogens spreading, among other things, the many carcasses are removed and not left to nature.
Lothar Häseker, a hunter in Etelsen in the Verden district, recently found five dead deer in a field. “They had retreated to an access road where they were dry,” he reports. Such paths next to the flooded meadows and fields are the few areas where the animals can recover.
But then walkers disturbed the five deer – they fled into the frozen field, broke through the thin ice and died. In Häsekers and the neighboring district alone, 22 dead deer have already been found. He assumes that the number will increase because many areas have not yet been searched.
Ultimately, the problem is not the flood, but the behavior of onlookers and walkers who behaved recklessly towards the wild animals. He is very angry about it, says Häseker. And steward Dahlweg appeals: Dogs should stay on a leash near flooded fields and meadows.
“The extent of the flood caught us all very unprepared,” says Antje Dahlweg. Roads and paths on the edge of flood areas were not closed quickly enough to allow wildlife to use them as refuges. The hunters' association is working on a concept so that the necessary measures can be implemented more quickly by the responsible institutions in the future.
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