Bird protection station North Rhine-Westphalia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The bird sanctuary of North Rhine-Westphalia is a state institution for bird protection , it is an ornithological station for the state. As department 24, it is affiliated with the LANUV State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection in North Rhine-Westphalia and is based in the seat of this department in the city of Recklinghausen . The bird protection station has three employees, Peter Herkenrath is the head.

history

The ornithologist and one of the founders of bird protection in Germany, Hans Freiherr von Berlepsch , planned in the late 1920s to relocate his Seebach bird sanctuary from Seebach in Thuringia to Altenhundem in the Sauerland (now a district of Lennestadt ). The state bought a piece of land there to support him. After these plans had failed, the "Vogelschutzwarte Altenhundem" was set up there in 1936, the head of which was appointed Chief Agriculture Councilor Heinrich Gasow (1899–1995). The bird sanctuary of the Münster Agricultural Office was integrated into the bird sanctuary and in 1939 the private bird sanctuary in Essen, founded in 1920, became the "Essen-Altenhundem bird sanctuary". The legal form was that of a registered association that was financed by public funds. The bird sanctuary was located in Essen.

The institution was continued in the newly established state of North Rhine-Westphalia as the "North Rhine-Westphalian Bird Protection Center Essen-Altenhunden - Institute for Applied Ornithology" (1952). In 1964 Wilfried Przygodda became the new head. In 1965 the institution became the state's sponsor and in 1975, when it was founded, it was taken over by the newly established State Institute for Ecology, Landscape Development and Forest Planning, the forerunner of today's LANUV. In 1978 Theodor Mebs became the new director under whose direction the bird sanctuary moved from Essen to Recklinghausen, to the headquarters of the LÖBF. Today the bird protection station is part of department 24 (species protection, bird protection station) of the LANUV. The heads were successively Bernd Conrad, Joachim Weiß and, until today (as of 2019), Peter Herkenrath.

tasks

In the first years of its existence, the bird sanctuary was primarily intended to promote useful birds as a contribution to pest control. For this purpose, nest boxes were installed; at the same time, birds considered harmful, such as sparrows, were controlled. In the post-war period, the range of tasks changed, following the changed social conditions, gradually to promote protective measures for rare and endangered bird species; applied research was also carried out on this. At the local level, “district stewards for bird protection” from voluntary nature conservation were appointed with whom the bird sanctuary worked together. Since the biological stations were founded , they have taken over most of their tasks.

With the legal force of the EU Birds Directive (1979), the maintenance of the nationwide bird sanctuaries became an essential task. Other tasks are, together with volunteer bird conservationists, the observation (monitoring) of the nationwide bird populations, the data of which are used to draw up the Red List and for statements in connection with planning and interventions. It works with the bird protection centers of the other federal states in the state working group of bird protection centers. Since 2015 she has also been conducting the falconry exam .

Literature and Sources

  • Peter Herkenrath, Michael M. Jöbges, Bettina Fels: 80 years of the state bird sanctuary in North Rhine-Westphalia. A look back and forward. Nature in NRW 2/2019: 16-19.