This year, the Bavarian State Association for Bird and Nature Conservation (LBV) recorded more than 1,200 breeding pairs of white storks in Bavaria. Last year, the record of more than 1,000 pairs of storks was broken, the LBV announced on Wednesday. “But this year more breeding storks were counted in Bavaria than at any time since stock numbers began to be recorded in 1900,” said biologist Oda Wieding.
New pairs of storks have therefore settled all over Bavaria. Most of the new settlements were again in western Bavaria, often in already densely populated areas such as Oettingen in the Swabian Ries and Uehlfeld in the Aisch Valley in central Franconia. New stork nests have also been reported from eastern Bavaria, such as in the cities of Amberg, Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz or Schwandorf.
Only 35 years ago there was an alarming low with 58 Bavarian breeding pairs, the message continues. The population of white storks has been increasing again since the beginning of the millennium. With the “White Stork Species Aid Program” started in 1984 by the LBV on behalf of the State Office for the Environment (LfU), feeding areas and nesting aids in Bavaria were secured and newly created.
In the meantime, the migratory behavior of the animals has also changed. “A large proportion of the Bavarian storks that migrate south via the western route are increasingly spending the winter directly in Spain. This saves them having to cross the Mediterranean,” said Wieding. The conservationists assume that there are even more pairs of white storks in Bavaria than were counted, since not all of them may have been recorded. Anyone who notices a new pair of storks on site can report this to the LBV by e-mail to [email protected].
Since 2014, some young Bavarian storks have also received small GPS transmitters as part of the satellite telemetry project at the Radolfzell ornithological station. This summer, 20 white storks were equipped with new transmitters. In this way, further information about the feeding area situation in the breeding area, the migration routes and the endangerment factors on the way to the winter quarters should be collected.