Air traffic has been getting on the nerves of the people of Freilassing for a long time. Sure, the airport over there in Salzburg is somehow your airport too. But the air traffic controllers there let the vast majority of jets take off and land via Freilassing instead of via the south of Salzburg, where it is more mountainous and where there are also residents who could afford expensive lawyers. The “Protection Association Rupertiwinkel” is trying persistently to make itself heard, which is not so easy acoustically, when the Austrian Armed Forces, like the other day, have two Eurofighter sends out to take part in a Alpha Jet from the squadron of the Red Bull can empire to practice an interception maneuver. In 2016, something like this is said to have even violated German airspace, but that was at most a small scratch. In addition, the defense ministers of both countries have just signed an agreement that allows military jets to follow suspicious civilian aircraft across the border. But of course it doesn’t say anything about storks.
Storks do not care about human agreements such as national borders, although migratory birds are increasingly giving up long-distance flights and spending the winter here due to climate change. But it’s not the breeding season right now, the nest by the chimney of the Freilassingen railway museum Lokwelt is empty. In the absence of the storks, a representative of the protection association thought aloud whether this nest shouldn’t be taken from the chimney. Because even worse than a jet roaring over Freilassing would be one crashing down because of a stork.
To be on the safe side, the southern Bavarian air authority agreed, but the nature conservationists in all sorts of offices and associations, as well as many civilian residents of Freilassing, see no danger. Because the planes don’t fly as low as the storks over the city. In addition, only last year, with some effort, a metal basket was attached to the chimney so that a species-appropriate pair of storks can finally nest and breed properly after two failed attempts. The success was great, with the offspring as well as with the number of clicks on the ones installed up there live camera. Now the government of Upper Bavaria should examine the case. But she has nothing to say to the storks and the many other birds that fly around there and some nest right around Salzburg Airport.