Great voluntary commitment to young wildlife rescue

Sunday, 02 February 2025 00:00
Written by Portal Editor

Survey shows: In May alone, every drone team invests three working weeks in animal and species protection. One fawn is found per ten hectares. Rare species such as the Montagu's harrier or the Marsh harrier are also discovered.

The first meadows are mown as early as the beginning of April in order to feed the fresh green grass to cattle or to operate a biogas plant.

Countless young hares and birds nesting on the ground are affected by this early mowing work, and a little later, fawns too. With drones, baskets and landing nets, rescue teams therefore bring wild animals to safety from the rotary mower at dawn during the harvest season. To find out more about the extent and success of this commitment to animal and species protection, the German Wildlife Rescue Service, the German Wildlife Foundation and the German Hunting Association conducted a survey. The results are now available and will be presented today at the meeting of the young game rescue teams at the "Hunting and Dogs" trade fair in Dortmund.

One fifth of the grassland area recorded

Responses from 490 young game rescue teams from all federal states were evaluated. In 2023, they searched a total of 475,000 hectares of grassland or grassland-like areas with arable fodder. "That corresponds to one fifth of the grassland area that is mown annually in Germany. This makes our results very meaningful," says Andreas Alfred Brandt from the German Wildlife Rescue Service.

One fawn found per 10 hectares of area

On average, one fawn was found per ten hectares of area searched. In relation to the fawns rescued, on average only 2.7 percent of the fawns were overlooked and subsequently injured or killed during mowing. "This shows how practical and effective the search for young game with drones is in preventing animal suffering," says Dr. Marie Sange from the German Hunting Association.

Potential for species protection: clutches and young birds were regularly discovered

Almost every second rescue team has found clutches or young birds of partridges, pheasants or, above all, mallards at least once during their operations. Even rare meadow harriers and marsh harriers have occasionally been discovered and rescued. "The use of drones has great potential for protecting endangered species such as curlews, lapwings or black-tailed godwits," says Dr. Andreas Kinser from the German Wildlife Foundation.

Each team spends 271 hours on volunteer animal protection

From March to July, each team invested an average of 271 hours in volunteer animal protection work. In May alone, it was 118 hours, or three full working weeks. On average, two drone pilots and six helpers were active in their free time per team - 70 percent of them were hunters, 30 percent farmers.

An average of 11 square kilometres of area was searched

In the main month of May, each young game rescue team flew over an average of 4.5 square kilometres with the drone, and from March to July it was even over 11 square kilometres in total. The teams most frequently searched on classic grassland with grasses and herbs (90 percent), arable fodder areas with grass and clover mixtures (9 percent) and areas with grain for silage (6 percent).

Young game found mainly in the peripheral areas of the grassland areas

The rescue teams most frequently encountered young animals in the peripheral areas of the searched areas. In addition to fawns, young hares were particularly often rescued. Fallow deer and red deer calves were also discovered.

Among the birds, it was mainly nests or chicks of mallards, pheasants and partridges that were found. Even rare meadow harriers and marsh harriers were occasionally rescued.