Wettenberger Ried

Nature reserve and Bannwald Wettenberger Ried IUCN Category IV - Habitat / Species Management Area
Peat canal in the protected forest area in the NSG (2014)
location	near Eberhardzell and Hochdorf ; District of Biberach , Baden-Württemberg ( Germany )
surface	66.3 ha
Identifier	4,100
WDPA ID	82906
Geographical location	48 ° 2 '  N , 9 ° 49'  E Coordinates: 48 ° 1 '31 "  N , 9 ° 49' 10"  E
Sea level	from 640 m to 650 m ( ø 645 m)
Setup date	October 19, 1982
administration	Regional Council Tübingen

The betting Berger Ried ( WDPA - and CDDA . -No 82906) is a 1982 adequately qualified and 66.3  ha (other claims to 66.6 ha) nature reserve on the Hochgeländ . It is located near the district of Wettenberg in Hochdorf in the district of Biberach in Baden-Württemberg ( Germany ).

It consists of the high moor areas Wasenmoos and Wettensee .

Geographical location

The Wettenberger Ried nature reserve extends directly to the east of the apex of the "Hochgeländ" plateau between the Hochdorf district of Wettenberg in the north, the Eberhardzell hamlets of Boflitz and Awengen in the east and south-east and the hamlets of Hochdorf, Benzenhaus, Busenberg, Hochgeländ and Berg in the south-southwest, West and northwest.

The protected area is located in the western part of the catchment area of the small Riß tributary Umlach at heights of about 640 to 650  m above sea level. NHN . It is around 1.8 km long and 300 to 700 m wide.

Protection purpose

The main protection purpose is "the preservation and calming of the two raised bogs, Wettensee and Wasenmoos, with their typical flora and, in some cases, endangered animals, and their moor and developmental characteristics on the highest elevation of the old moraine in the Biberach district".

history

The Wettenberger Ried was created at the end of the Riss cold period , when glaciers in the foothills of the Alps were receding. About 180,000 years ago, one of these glaciers left a hollow over water-retaining layers of earth and rock, in which two lakes without drainage formed. Over the millennia, this resulted in silting up of the Wasenmoos and Wettensee, two low-nutrient and up to 3.8 m thick raised bogs.

Over the centuries, castles were built in the vicinity of Wettenberger Ried, and the settlement of the high ground began with their construction. These include Neidegg Castle (to Eberhardzell) and Schweinhausen Castle (to Hochdorf), from whose wall remains the Heinrichsburg near Eberhardzell was built between 1600 and 1620. At Wettenberg, on the eastern edge of the "Wasenmoos", a few meters east of a road , is the location of a former refugee castle , whose walls and ditches have been preserved.

From 1820 wood was felled from the forests of the southern part of Wettenberger Ried for burning and heating purposes and from then until 1950 peat was cut through the drainage of the Wasenmoos , whereby a peat coal factory was operated until 1834 . The moorland was drained through a system of ditches, the ditches of which can still be seen today. Water was diverted from the moor for various purposes. A natural reed forest gradually developed on the areas that had fallen dry as a result.

Since the first half of the 20th century, when other areas of the Wettenberger Ried were drained, livestock farming expanded from the surrounding area into the Ried, transforming moorland into meadows and pastures . In the 1940s, a section of a high-voltage line that still exists today was built through the Wettenberger Ried in the west-east direction , for which a clearing-like clearing was carried out approximately in the middle. This line no longer exists; it was dismantled a few years ago. Since the end of the 1950s, when the network of paths in the reed and on the high ground was expanded, the reed forest was replaced by spruce reforestation.

After the Wettenberger Ried had been used intensively for forestry and agricultural purposes for centuries, it was declared a nature reserve on October 19, 1982, giving priority to nature again, as it had before the area was used by humans. In it, the forest should develop undisturbed into the “ primeval forest of tomorrow” , with the landscape largely left to itself. It also reads: It also serves as a scientific observation area for jungle research .

Damming measures have been carried out since 1997 and most of the aforementioned spruce afforestations have been cut down since 1998 and 1999, with the aim of regenerating the raised bog through rewetting and renaturation and to restore the original reed character. This leads to the death of the resulting by former drainage Ried Forest and increasing incidence of light on the soil structure to moorbildendem peat moss, so that in the plant world again light- and water-loving bog plants such as cranberry , purple moor grass and cotton grass can settle and the fauna again moormögende amphibians , protozoa , Insects , reptiles , mammals , spiders and birds can become native.

Since parts of the Wettenberger Ried were declared a Bannwald Wettenberger Ried in 2003 , no human use has been allowed in them, whereby the landscape is left entirely to itself.

Moor circular route

The approximately 2.4 km long circular moor path leads through the Wettenberger Ried as a Bannwald- and Hochmoor educational trail , whose parking lot for hikers is on the southern edge of the nature reserve on the edge of the forest east of the hamlet of Benzenhaus. Numerous information and display boards provide information about nature and a viewing platform on a newly created lake invites you to rest.

See also

• List of nature reserves in the Biberach district
• List of nature reserves in Baden-Württemberg

literature

• Department for nature conservation and landscape management: nature reserves in the administrative district of Tübingen . Ed .: Regional Council Tübingen. Second revised and expanded edition. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 978-3-7995-5175-5 , pp. 249-251 .

Web links

Commons : Wettenberger Ried nature reserve  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ordinance, data evaluation sheet and map in the profile of the nature reserve in the protected area directory of the LUBW

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Profile of the nature reserve in the LUBW's list of protected areas , section " Protection purpose"
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
3. ↑ Wettenberger Ried , on protectedplanet.net
4. ↑ ^{a b} Photo of the signs Bannwald (Landesforstverwaltung Baden-Württemberg) and Moor-Rundweg (State Forestry Office Biberach), in Wettenberger Ried , accessed on November 19, 2007, on gemeinde-hochdorf.de