The Donau-Ries district office will soon order the dismantling of a ten-kilometer-long wild boar fence in the Oettinger Forest. This was confirmed on Tuesday by a spokeswoman for District Administrator Stefan Rößle (CSU). “The disposal order is in preparation,” she said. “It is expected to take place in early November.” This was preceded by a long-term dispute over the fence, which was once around 45 kilometers long. He was supposed to keep the wild boars in the 4000 hectare forest so that they cause as little damage to the fields as possible.
The fence was erected by the owners of the forest, the Princely House of Oettingen-Oettingen and Oettingen-Spielberg, and was popularly called “The Prince’s Iron Curtain”. Conservationists, private individuals and local politicians accused the Princely House of massively violating the right to freely enter nature guaranteed by the Bavarian constitution. Although the courts soon ruled that they followed the criticism, it took more than twelve years for the dispute to be settled in the last instance this summer. The Donau-Ries District Office, headed by District Administrator Rößle, had once approved parts of the fence.