Things are bad for the forests in Bavaria. The fact that most young firs, beeches and other regrowing trees have little chance of becoming big and strong also has to do with the many deer. Because the shoots of the young trees are delicacies, they eat them rigorously. The forest rangers’ browsing reports show this with great regularity. The forestry reports on the situation of forest regeneration, as they are officially called, are prepared every three years by the forestry administration and quantify the damage caused by feeding on the young trees. According to them, more deer would have to be shot in half of the 750 management communities in Bavaria – these are the units that make up the approximately 12,700 hunting areas in the Free State – in order to enable the development of diverse and strong mixed forests.
However, the Bavarian hunter president and CSU politician Ernst Weidenbusch and many hunters do not want more deer to be hunted. From their point of view, there are other reasons why the young trees in many forests do not grow back. Poor lighting conditions, for example, or ground vegetation that is too dense. Weidenbusch has been heavily criticizing the browsing reports for years. Many in the forest scene are convinced that he and his hunting association would rather abolish them today rather than tomorrow.
Now Weidenbusch has surprised everyone. “Forest report: Peace in the forest” is the title of the press release that the hunting association recently sent out. In it, the hunter president announces: “With each other instead of against each other in the interests of game and forest – that is the crucial thing. We are very pleased that the forestry report is now being further developed in a promising manner together with the forest owners and farmers’ association.”
What happened? Recently, Hunting Minister Hubert Aiwanger (FW), Forestry Minister Michaela Kaniber (CSU), farmers’ president Günther Felßner and the head of the forest owners in Bavaria, Josef Ziegler, met and unanimously declared that the browsing reports were “an indispensable monitoring and control instrument for a balanced forest-game ratio,” as you can read in a press release from the Ministry of Agriculture. At the same time, it is confirmed that in the future we will continue to decide on this basis how many deer should be hunted in a forest. “We expected Weidenbusch to comment angrily on the meeting,” says an insider. Especially since the hunter president was not invited.
Of course, Aiwanger, Kaniber and Co. have built a bridge for the hunters. As part of the reports, the foresters will in future also comment on the lighting conditions in the forests, the ground vegetation and other things. “But no one expected it to be so well received by Weidenbusch,” says the insider. “Because it’s a small thing that won’t change what the bite reports say.”