Wernau quarry ponds

	Wernauer Baggerseen nature reserve IUCN Category IV - Habitat / Species Management Area
	Wernauer Baggerseen nature reserve
location	Germany , Baden-Wuerttemberg , Esslingen district , Wernau , Koengen , Wendlingen am Neckar
surface	45.4 ha
WDPA ID	82897
Geographical location	48 ° 41 ' N , 9 ° 24' E Coordinates: 48 ° 41 '22 " N , 9 ° 23' 47" E
Setup date	06/05/1981
administration	Regional Council Stuttgart

The Wernau Baggerseen is a nature reserve (NSG number 1.090) in the area of the cities of Wernau and Wendlingen and the municipality of Köngen in the Esslingen district in Baden-Württemberg.

Location and history

The 32.1 hectare (ha) nature reserve is around 255 m above sea level in the Neckar Valley west of the city of Wernau and belongs to the Filder natural area and also to the FFH area 7321-341 Filder .

Until the end of the 19th century, the Neckar valley between Köngen and Wendlingen was characterized by meadow land. It was not until the middle of the 20th century that mechanical gravel mining completely changed the face of the Neckar valley. The Wendlingen markings had up to 20 hectares of open water and the large Pfauhauser Baggersee alone was 35 hectares in size. After the gravel deposits were exploited, more and more quarry ponds were backfilled. There were also considerations to build over the Wernau quarry ponds. As early as 1974, the German Association for Bird Protection (DBV, as NABU was still called at that time) applied for the Wernau quarry ponds to be designated as a nature reserve after more than 200 species of birds had been detected there over the years. In June 1981 the nature reserve ordinance was issued. The management of the nature reserve was officially transferred to the DBV by the Stuttgart regional council. In March 1992 the directly adjacent nature reserve Neckarwasen was designated. The protected area increased to 45.4 hectares and has been completely managed by NABU ever since.

A car test track run by Daimler AG (formerly Mercedes-Benz AG) is located in the middle of the nature reserve. Talks between NABU and Daimler began in March 1996 with the aim of outsourcing the test track. In November 2006, the NABU state chairman, Dr. Stefan Rösler again to Dieter Zetsche , the former CEO of Daimler AG, with the request to finally give up the test track at the Wernau quarry ponds. Zetsche agreed to accelerate the search for alternatives. With the construction of the test track in Immendingen, the test track in Wernau will be replaced in the future.

Protection purpose

The area offers valuable habitat for wild animals and plants and represents a supraregional important resting place for moisture-bound bird species and ecological compensation area. There is also a high-quality natural history teaching and study area.

So far, over 200 bird species have been registered, which regularly or occasionally come here as breeding birds or for resting and foraging. These include numerous species whose populations are declining in Baden-Württemberg or even in the entire federal territory and which therefore require special protection. Examples are gray heron, little bittern , goosander , marsh harrier , sandpiper, curlew pipit, puffy tit , great crested grebe , gadfly , teal, teal , red puffer , little ringed plover, kingfisher, great shrike, red backer, reed warbler, reed warbler, osprey and others

literature

Roland Appl, Günter Schmid and others: Wernauer Baggerseen nature reserve - From the gravel pit to the nature reserve , State Institute for Environmental Protection Baden-Württemberg 1993, ISBN 3-88251-186-9
Reinhard Wolf , Ulrike Kreh (Hrsg.): The nature reserves in the Stuttgart administrative region . Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2007, ISBN 978-3-7995-5176-2 , pp. 500-502

Web links

Commons : Wernauer Baggerseen nature reserve - collection of images, videos and audio files

Profile of the nature reserve in the LUBW's list of protected areas
NABU pages on the Wernau quarry ponds

Individual evidence

↑ Immendingen: Groundbreaking ceremony for the new Daimler test track . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 19, 2015, ISSN 0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed July 15, 2016]).
↑ Daimler abandons the test track in the Wernau Baggerseen nature reserve . In: Esslinger Zeitung . June 23, 2019 ( esslinger-zeitung.de [accessed August 4, 2019]).

[1] Immendingen: Groundbreaking ceremony for the new Daimler test track . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . February 19, 2015, ISSN 0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed July 15, 2016]).

[2] Daimler abandons the test track in the Wernau Baggerseen nature reserve . In: Esslinger Zeitung . June 23, 2019 ( esslinger-zeitung.de [accessed August 4, 2019]).