A narrow, pointed, red beak that is bent downwards at the end like a small hook, white plumage and a head with black or – in females – reddish-brown feathers: that is the goosander. The main distribution areas of this massive duck bird are Iceland, Scandinavia and northern Germany. The goosander is rarely seen in Bavaria, but it is not on the red list of endangered species. It is mainly native to the small and large rivers south of the Danube. The population is currently estimated at a maximum of 550 breeding pairs. A large number of winter guests arrive in the cold season.
Fishermen have a problem with the goosander. This is because the duck bird mainly eats fish. Its most important prey in this country is the grayling. This is a 30 to 50 centimetre-long trout fish that lives in oxygen-rich streams and rivers with stony, gravelly bottoms and strong currents. Grayling like to stay in groups there. They swim openly in the river and – unlike trout – do not hide under large stones, on a fallen tree or in a channel on the riverbed. This makes them easy prey for the goosander.
Like many other native fish species in Bavaria, the grayling is classified as highly endangered on the Red List. In the Isar and the Iller, but also in smaller rivers such as the Alz, the Traun or the Leitzach, which once housed large numbers of grayling, the population has shrunk massively. Conservationists such as Norbert Schäffer from the Bavarian Association for Bird and Nature Conservation (LBV) cite the destruction of fish habitats in the waters as the main reason for this. For example, due to the many weirs, river sills and other cross-structures, but also due to increasing silting and the heating of the river water due to global warming. Fishermen, in turn, blame the goosander for the grayling decline.
Now there has been a scandal between conservationists and fishermen. The LBV and the Nature Conservation Association (BN) have terminated their collaboration in a research project on goosander and grayling and left the working group of research institutions, authorities and professional associations in protest. “The project has completely gotten out of hand, it has developed into a single shooting orgy of goosander,” says LBV boss Schäffer. “We were not willing or able to accept this any longer.” There was also increasing pressure from members of his association in the project regions to end the collaboration.
“It cannot be the case that entire sections of river are shot to make them free of goosander under the guise of species protection,” says Schäffer. In the last two years, a good 200 goosander have been shot on two short sections of river on the upper and middle Isar alone. A total of 342 goosander have been killed on the six sections of river in the research project. “That is simply far too many,” says Schäffer, “we cannot accept that the mass shootings continue like this for at least another year.”
The working group was surprised by the conservationists’ withdrawal. “The project has been running since 2020,” says Michael Schubert from the Institute for Fisheries at the State Office for Agriculture (LfL), who coordinates it. “And it was clear from the outset that goosander would be shot as part of it.” The reason: The project is intended to clarify once and for all the controversial issue of what influence goosander have on the decline in grayling. “But to do this, you need sections of river with goosander and sections where there are as few as possible,” says Bernhard Gum, a fisheries consultant in Upper Bavaria. “But you can only get the sections of river free of goosander by shooting the goosander there.”
“A comprehensive hunt for the goosander is not the goal”
Schubert and Gum reject the conservationists’ suspicion that hunting the goosander is to be established as a protective measure for the grayling under the guise of science. “That would not only be against bird protection,” says Gum, “but also logistically impossible.” The project already shows very clearly that hunting the goosander is far too strenuous and time-consuming to be practiced on a large scale. LfL man Schubert also stresses: “A comprehensive hunt for the goosander is not the goal; the hunters would not be able to keep it up.”
Two other aspects are important for the fishing experts. “The project makes it clear that the goosander population here is significantly higher than assumed,” says Gum. “And by several times.” LfL man Schubert emphasizes that it is very clear that the goosander have an influence on the grayling in one section of the river. “In the areas without goosander, we have significantly more grayling than in those with goosander,” he says. “And they are exactly the size classes that a goosander can best hunt with its beak.”
Conservationist Schäffer calls this a truism. “It is clear to any layperson that where fish-eating birds live, there are fewer fish than where there are no fish-eating birds,” he says. “I don’t need a multi-year research project to prove that.”