The stork population in Germany is recovering. But a couple in Franconia lost all their offspring – plastic waste also played its part.
Dinkelsbühl – The storks on the roof of the Old Town Hall in Dinkelsbühl, Bavaria, are such an attraction that they have their own webcam, blog and Facebook page. Many people keep track of the birds’ activities. The enthusiasm was great when the stork couple had offspring at the end of April – four young storks hatched and delighted the stork watchers. However, there is no happy ending: none of the chicks survived. One of the things to blame is apparently garbage that the parents built in the nest.
On May 4th, it was announced on the Facebook page “Storch24 Dinkelsbühl” that three of the four chicks “unfortunately did not survive the cold and damp weather”. Just one day later, a new post on the social network suggested another bad news: “Sad end to a promising brood. We wish the stork couples in the other Dinkelsbühler nests good luck. “
Storks in Dinkelsbühl could have drowned
So it was too cold and too wet for the chicks – but according to media reports, one more factor contributed to the death of the brood: rubbish in the nest. As could also be seen on recordings from the stork webcam, the birds in Dinkelsbühl also used plastic waste and packaging to expand their eyrie. The problem: rainwater can then drain more poorly, which could have been the fatality of the chicks.
“At first the chicks were dirty from the mud, then one less was alive every day,” said Wolfgang Horlacher of the newspaper Bild. He has been looking after the stork camera from BUND Nature Conservation in Dinkelsbühl for 20 years. And further: “We firmly assume that the plastic waste was to blame.”
According to the report, the BUND local group did nothing because the effects of the garbage in the nest were not expected. “For us it came suddenly, we were shocked ourselves that the chicks died,” said the BUND local group chief Klaus Eberhardt the newspaper.
Plastic in the nest: water cannot run off
However, it is not uncommon for the entire brood of birds not to make it, said Markus Bachmann from the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV) to the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation. He thinks that the boys in Dinkelsbühl have cooled off. That could happen relatively quickly if young and therefore inexperienced stork parents underestimated the weather and did not offer their offspring enough protection, according to the expert.
By using plastic waste, the nest also lacked the natural drainage function, without which it cannot dry. In Germany, the number of resident storks is increasing again in many places. This is also the case in the Kassel district *, where ten pairs of storks are looking forward to this year. * hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
