Conservation

My good friend Johannes Amshoff allowed me to join a night of a skylark ringing project in Münster with his friends from the university and I had to take the chance of making some images! The skylark is a bird of open fields and especially agricultural landscapes are its home! Poorly through industrial agriculture, this species loses more and more of its population in Germany. In the opinion of many ornithologists, this bird species has no bright future as many open land species. To ensure the...

When you take a look at the NSG Lüsekamp you might think that this area is Spadefoot toad (Pelobates fuscus) heaven, but for almost twice decades the species couldn't be really confirmed anymore. Since the toad populations in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalia's declining cause of habitat destruction, every suitable habitat is precious. Eutrophication, succession, and unsuitable reproduction waters are the biggest problems for them and after a lot of work of renaturation, this area seems to be...

Crossing the human-made death strips is a yearly massacre for every kind of amphibian. Not just the common ones like Bufo bufo and Rana temporaria, also rare species like Hyla arborea end as a flat pancake on the street. For this reason professionals and volunteers designed instrumentals to save at least a few populations from die-off and fragmentation. The mobile instrument is the amphibian fence. Almost every little local nature conservation organization uses this method with the massive help...

What is Bsal? It is a chytrid fungus from Asia, which came to Europe through animal trade. It causes skin lesions in the European salamanders and newts. In Salamandra salamandra and Triturus cristatus the die-off is extreme and kills whole populations. Where? The distribution in Europe is southern Netherlands, Belgium and the Eifel and Ruhr area in Germany - there are also cases from Spain in T.marmoratus. What can we do? - disinfect your shoes and gear (with Virkon S 10g for 1l water or 70%...