Animal rights activists insult municipal employees City of Bonn suspends nutria hunt in Rheinaue due to sabotage
Bonn · The hunt for nutria in the Rheinaue has come to an end for the time being - and has been doing so since November. Animal rights activists had sabotaged traps and insulted city employees. New signs inform about rodent damage.
The hunt for nutrias in the Rheinaue has come to an end for the time being: as the city has now announced, it has not been taking action against the invasive rodents since November. "The reason for this is that traps have been sabotaged and staff members have been hostile," explains Bettina Molly from the Lower Nature Conservation Authority. Instead, they are now using signs as tall as a man to inform citizens about the reasonableness of the feeding bans. The nutria protectors are unlikely to be bothered by this, however, because they are already pouring heaps of carrots and grain onto the banks and building stairs into the water to make life easier for the animals.
According to Molly, the nutria hunt resulted in ten animals being caught and then killed. They were lured into the live traps. The commissioned hunters would have killed them on site at close range by shooting them in the head. "Transporting them and killing them elsewhere turned out to be impractical as they are too big and aggressive and all this would have meant even more stress for the animals," says Molly. The total population in 2021 was around 60 nutrias. But according to Molly, there are likely to be many more. The goal is to halve the population.
But that is still a long way off. Especially because hunting has been suspended since November. The reason is the enormous opposition from animal rights activists. Unknown people have sabotaged traps with sticks and bottles or even set up a guard to warn animals, says Molly. Large quantities of carrots and grain are regularly dumped on the banks to feed the nutrias. Stairs have even been built in the water out of wood and sandbags to help the rodents reach the bank.
For the city, this is a cat and mouse game: the city workers clean up, and a short time later the structures and food are back. Added to this is the size of the Rhine floodplain. It is simply not possible to monitor all areas. David Baier, head of the Department of Environment and City Greenery, is particularly concerned about the insults and hostility that the hunters and colleagues have encountered. However, this does not deter them: hunting is to continue soon.
Another problem is the misinformation that is being spread: For example, that the animals are transported in trucks, tortured, eaten or even poisoned. The new signs, which have recently been put up in the Rheinaue and contain a lot of information about the nutrias and the municipal measures, are supposed to help against this.
"With the new signs we want to educate people about the negative consequences of feeding and point out the problems caused by the invasive nutrias for our Rhine floodplain lake. Many people are not aware that they are not doing the animals any good. Due to the constant oversupply of food, they multiply even more, which has fatal consequences for the ecosystem," explains Baier.
Nutrias endanger ecosystem in Bonn's Rhine floodplain
In the Rheinaue, he says, it is particularly problematic that the nutrias eat away the useful aquatic plants in the Rheinauensee. The so-called macroalgae were specially planted during the lake restoration, which cost several million Euro. According to Baier, the populations of the large pond mussel, which is a protected species and is also on the rodents' menu, have already been considerably reduced. In addition, the nutrias are destroying the bank reeds, which are important for native species diversity.
The nutrias, which have no natural enemies and can therefore reproduce unhindered, do not stop at trees either. They eat away the bark, which has already led to the death of individual trees. Nutrias dig through the banks to build their burrows. Baier fears that if the animals continue to multiply, there is a danger that they will migrate and spread to sensitive nature reserves such as the Siegaue.
Surveyor's office to examine nutrias population
From March onwards, the city has commissioned the surveyor's office Lanaplan, which has already drawn up the remediation concept for the Rheinauensee, to examine the nutriapopulation more closely. They are not only to count the animals, but also to document damage. Based on the results, the city wants to evaluate how effective the measures taken so far are and advise on how to proceed.
The German Animal Welfare Association, among others, had spoken out against the nutria hunt. In talks, they had tried to convince the city of a joint scientific pilot project as an alternative to killing. The idea was to make the animals infertile. This would be compatible with EU regulations, as they only provide for "management". Neutering the animals was permissible, as was releasing them, especially in a scientific project. The city, however, considered this procedure unworkable, among other things because the animals would be too stressed.
(Original text: Nicolas Ottersbach; Translation: Mareike Graepel)
