Master Adebar is increasingly clattering in the southwest. The white stork can hardly be overlooked because its population is increasing every year. This also has to do with what people no longer need and throw away.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - Every year there are more pairs of storks in Baden-Württemberg. Their number has also increased in recent months. A total of 1999 pairs have been extrapolated so far, last year there were 1767, said the country's stork commissioner, Judith Opitz, of the German Press Agency. "The number of white storks is steadily increasing every year," she added. "With an average of 1.7 young animals per stork pair, the breeding success this year is also quite decent."
The Upper Rhine and Upper Swabia are particularly popular with the newly wed storks, said Opitz. "The storks had the best success in the Achern district of Wagshurst near Offenburg on the southern Upper Rhine with an average of 2.5 feathered offspring per eyrie." 1.95 young per pair were counted among the Upper Swabian storks. The district of Biberach is the leader there with 2.2 young storks.
The white storks, also known as rattle storks, had fewer offspring on the High Rhine with only 1.24 young. At the same time, three to four times less rain fell in the north-east of the country than in the south-east. "The drought there has affected those storks that use earthworms to raise their young," explained the stork expert. When the soil is dry, the worms retreat to deep layers of the soil. "If wetlands are renatured, meadows are rewetted and grassland is used extensively, i.e. little mowing and no fertilization, storks will find enough food," recommended Opitz. These included insects such as mole crickets, but also earthworms, amphibians and small mammals such as mice.
According to the Nature Conservation Union (Nabu), the number of pairs of storks has more than doubled over the past seven years - from 801 (2014) to 1767 last year and now further to almost 2000. For comparison: in 1975 there were in Baden- Württemberg still 15 breeding pairs. "The white stork was on the verge of extinction there," said Opitz.
The recipe for success: better protection and resettlement projects. And also people and their consumer behavior, because storks are much less likely to catch the annual travel bug than they used to. Many animals are increasingly wintering in Spain or Germany and no longer fly to Africa. In Upper Swabia, for example, around a third of all animals stay behind, said Opitz. "This is not an indicator of climate change, the behavior of most of these storks is influenced by human intervention," says Nabu. In Spain, the animals now find plenty of food in open dumps and in rice fields.
According to Nabu, dozens of volunteer stork carers are active in Baden-Württemberg to document developments in the world of storks.
