A very simple idea: a rope is stretched across the road, on which squirrels can safely change sides. There is in Trier, but also in Berlin and Hamburg.
Trier – So that squirrels can cross the road safely, there are now two “squirrel bridges” in Trier. Each of these is an eight-centimeter-thick rope that is stretched across a road between two trees.
The “bridges” have only been “in operation” for a few weeks: the first croissants have already darted over the rope, says city spokesman Ernst Mettlach.
Resident Petra Lieser, who came up with the idea for the “bridges”, was very relieved. “I turned to the city because I always found so many dead squirrels right here,” she says in the Mariahof district. Their proposal was implemented in no time at all. And: Since the ropes have been stretched, she has not discovered any dead animals.
In order to encourage the squirrels to cross safely at great heights, Lieser fills up food dispensers every day, which are attached to the side of the road below the ropes. “The food is gone every day,” she says. She knows that birds also use the kernels. “The nuts are sure to get the squirrels.”
According to Lieser’s research, there are still “squirrel bridges” in Berlin and Hamburg. “They could be anywhere that squirrels get run over,” she says. In principle, it doesn’t take much to do this – just someone who initially attracts the animals with food. The ropes in Trier are eight to ten meters long.
At the “danger point” in Trier, the problem is that the road is wide and the animals jump from the bushes onto the road. “No motorist sees that,” says Lieser. On one of the “bridges”, employees of the urban space office had also installed a wildlife camera that should trigger when an animal approaches. In one of the first photos, however, it wasn’t a squirrel, but a jay: “And he looks right into the lens,” says the spokesman. dpa
