The Perlacher Forest is 13.26 square kilometers in size. Well, there are more extensive forest areas, but that’s pretty decent for the Munich metropolitan area. As a deer you can’t really complain, you’ll find enough to fill your stomach: young grass, buds, herbs – everything is there that pleases the ruminant’s palate. A deer eats two to four kilograms of green matter a day, but the Perlacher Forest is not so densely populated by deer that it should not be enough. However, it has not been sufficiently researched whether the supposedly preferred large witch’s herb, the forest ziest, which is one of the favorite foods, and the equally popular common hollow tooth can be found there.
But the fact is that a trio of fearless deer will spare neither effort nor risk in order to enjoy a rather dubious culinary delight. They regularly make their way over the fine dust-laden green right next to the Giesinger Autobahn. Anyone who often drives the A 995 out of town has certainly seen Bambi and his friends grazing at the Taufkirchen junction. “They make regular snacks there,” says the Holzkirchen motorway police. But can that be healthy?
A few years ago, a study by the Technical University of Berlin in the allotment garden colony “Frischer Wind”, which is located in Charlottenburg right next to the city motorway, showed that vegetables grown there have problematic heavy metal contamination. Swiss chard with lead, parsley with cadmium. According to a report by Deutschlandfunk, it didn’t matter to the hobby gardeners in Berlin at the time. They continued to enjoy their harvest. You shouldn’t “be so pimpy,” they were quoted as saying.
Apparently our wild ruminants from the Giesinger Autobahn aren’t either. You can always find a way through the fence. Because it is well known that food tastes best when eaten out. Even if there are other dangers lurking for the common deer in addition to lead poisoning and speeding car avalanches. If you can’t see the three of them, it could be that either the fence has been repaired or someone in Taufkirchen is singing a song: “Yes, what’s up for the night? There’s a venison ragout, a venison ragout, a venison ragout!”