Trains are canceled at Deutsche Bahn. So far, so commonplace. This time it also affects travelers on their way to Oberstdorf im Allgäu. The reason for this is damage on the route to Immenstadt. This also sounds rather unsurprising given the dilapidated railway network. But to be fair: the railway is not to blame this time. Beavers are responsible for this.
The animals have damaged the railway embankment. An appraiser should now check how extensive the damage is and whether the builders can still be found there. After all, beavers are very busy, there is always something to do: cutting down trees, damming streams, building castles.
In Kirchseeon in the Ebersberg district they even have a voluntary job as landscape managers. Here the community is planning to make the dried moss more natural using sheet piling. However, a small population of beavers has already become active in a very unbureaucratic manner and has started their own damming work, free of charge.
Beavers – there are now 22,000 of them in Bavaria – are stubborn animals. They pursue plans that do not always seem plausible to people, especially farmers. They decide which tree has to go based on their mood. A few years ago they caused a sensation in Bavaria and beyond with two videos: one shows a Swabian beaver wandering through the night Augsburg city center walks. Despite the Corona curfew. He didn’t care that the traffic light was red; normally there is a five euro fine for that.
At the end of 2019, a fellow man from Lower Bavaria dragged a branch across the street during the night shift. The passenger of a car got out and helped him. The driver’s comment (“I don’t give a shit about d’Hosn”) turned the clip into a lasting video work of art.
So far there has been no sign of the beaver on the railway embankment on the route to Immenstadt, which is a shame. It is not known whether he wanted to make a contribution to flood protection. Perhaps he is already pursuing a new creative project somewhere else.
In any case, the tourist resort will remain cut off from rail traffic until the end of October.