German Wildlife Foundation
Hamburg / Magdeburg (ots)
Where is “Zorro”? The German Wildlife Foundation wants to know exactly. She starts a search for the animal of the year 2023 in Saxony-Anhalt. Citizens from the unified communities of the city of Oberharz am Brocken and the city of Wernigerode are now called upon to keep an eye out for the garden dormouse. Because the representative of the Bilche, also called sleeping mice, has now woken up from hibernation. Anyone who has seen a garden dormouse is asked to send an email to Tierdes [email protected].
In its search for the rare bilch, the foundation relies on the help of volunteer wildlife friends. Garden dormouse are small, nocturnal and they live in hiding. “So it’s difficult to spot them. But they like to come into gardens. Here they nibble grains in the aviary or gorge themselves on blackberries,” says Saskia Jerosch, project manager at the German Wildlife Foundation. It is important to Jerosch to educate home and garden owners. “Many mistake the garden dormouse for a mouse or confuse it with a rat in the dark. This is why some garden dormouse are poisoned. These dormouse are classified as ‘endangered’ on the Red List. We provide on-site advice if there are indications of a garden dormouse occurrence “, she says. Then Jerosch and her team try to confirm the suspicion. To do this, they use wildlife cameras that are attached to trees near the ground and photograph the garden dormouse at night. In addition, so-called track tunnels provide information: when the animals run through the narrow tunnels hanging from branches or bushes, they press their paws into a kind of stamp pad and then leave imprints on the paper lying in the tunnels.
The area in which the German Wildlife Foundation is active is still a white spot on the distribution map of the small bilch. No one knows for sure if there are garden dormouse here. Mechthild Klocke, head of the “Search for traces of garden dormouse” project from the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND): “In Saxony-Anhalt, evidence of garden dormouse is only available for the area of the Harz National Park. However, the first dead finds show that the species also continues to exist here could be widespread. In neighboring Lower Saxony, we already have evidence beyond the national park that shows that it can definitely be found in the vicinity of settlements.” The project of the German Wildlife Foundation “Garden dormouse – the search in Saxony-Anhalt” therefore supplements the nationwide “Search for traces of garden dormouse” of the BUND, the Justus Liebig University Gießen and the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research. “Every reference to the endangered species helps us to better understand them and their way of life – so we can protect them even better,” says Klocke.
You want to know how the garden dormouse differs from mice or rats? Click on our profile: or find out more about the animal of the year 2023 here:
Leaflet with the motif “Wanted – have you seen this Bilch?” for printing on request.
Press contact:
Jenifer Calvi
Press Officer German Wildlife Foundation
Phone 040-970 78 69 – 14
[email protected]
www.DeutscheWildtierStiftung.de
Original content from: German Wildlife Foundation, transmitted by news aktuell
