The Meedensdorfer Straße is a busy arterial road in Memmelsdorf near Bamberg – and it is densely overgrown with tall trees in places. Here many squirrels jump from branch to branch. Until recently, if the animals wanted to get to the other side, they had to cross the dangerous road. “Around 20 squirrels were run over here every year on the road,” says arborist Michael Schenzel. An acquaintance of his from the Memmelsdorf district of Meedensdorf, who is committed to animal welfare, drew his attention to the deadly danger to rodents.
As an arborist, Michael Schenzel is also a certified tree climber and has the appropriate equipment. He contacted the Berlin association “Aktion Tier”, whose members informed him about squirrel bridges. Activists of the association have built such bridges in Berlin and Munich: the squirrels climb a few meters above the street from one tree to another using a rope several centimeters thick. In March, Michael Schenzel and a colleague stretched the rope across Meedensdorfer Strasse. The municipality of Memmelsdorf financed the construction of the squirrel bridge. With the approval of the district office of Bamberg, volunteer firefighters blocked the district road and secured the construction site so that Michael Schenzel’s volunteers could get started.
A thick climbing rope was stretched between two trees and across the road for the animals.
(Photo: Pia Bayer/dpa)
In addition to the rope that leads from tree to tree across the street, the animal rights activists also installed two wildlife cameras. Michael Schenzel says the rope is a custom-made product made of polypropylene with a service life of ten to 15 years. To lure the squirrels onto the bridge, a box with special food is attached to each end of the rope. “The box is already empty on one side,” he says. This is an indication that the squirrels are using the bridge. This is not monitored around the clock.
A feeding station at the end of a thick rope above a road has various seeds and nuts. It should give squirrels a taste for the new crossing aid.
(Photo: Pia Bayer/dpa)
To his knowledge, the Memmelsdorf squirrel bridge is only the fifth such construction in Germany, says Michael Schenzel. There are others in Berlin-Friedrichshagen, Munich-Gern, Trier and Vlotho (North Rhine-Westphalia). In May 2023, the Upper Bavarian municipality of Krailling (Starnberg district) installed such an “air bridge” between two trees. Juliana Neumayer from the squirrel sanctuary in Bamberg often tries to save squirrels that have been hit. “Unfortunately, the chance of survival in such cases is very poor,” reports the animal rights activist, who was also involved in the construction of the Memmelsdorf squirrel bridge. “The injuries are often just too deep. I estimate that about 90 percent of the animals die from it.”
In some cases, the squirrels that were hit did not even survive the journey to the sanctuary. Sometimes she feeds young animals whose mothers have been run over, says Juliana Neumayer. Once she got a call because a mother squirrel had been run over on a street in Bamberg. Her young animal, which she was carrying in her mouth, remained unharmed “as if by a miracle,” says Neumayer. Together with Michael Schenzel, she found the nest with four other young squirrels and brought them to the sanctuary.
Squirrels can’t properly assess the danger posed by cars, says Neumayer: “During the mating season, the males chase after the females and don’t pay attention to their environment.” Sometimes the little reddish-brown rodents took to the streets because there was no other way to get to their destination. “But if it’s possible, squirrels always go over the trees,” explains the animal rights activist – there they are better protected from birds of prey than on the ground. That’s why Juliana Neumayer is confident that the rope stretched between two trees in Memmelsdorf will save many squirrel lives.