Successful protection of species : The largest Predator in Central Europe, returns to the Baltic sea coast

Scary is the largest Predator in Central Europe is not just. Rather, it comes across as a cozy type, if it is dozing on the beach – even in the middle of the Winter. Against cold North winds it has a four inch thick coat of bacon. The insulating layer keeps you warm even when you work in depending on the Season, cool or cold sea. The Predator activity that takes place there. Cod and other fish are the victims, every day for five to ten kilograms of them or other inhabitants of the sea – Hiking usually in the stomach of a full-grown grey seal. After the catch the up to 350 kg animals to swim back to the beach. Digestion sleep is called for. You enjoy now and more off the German coast. And mostly unmolested.

the last of The grey seal Vorpommern, was killed in 1920

This was not always so. Even at the beginning of the last century, the Prussian authorities, premiums paid for example, because the fishermen complained that grey seals would make the fishing dispute. In 1927, the hunting was banned then. However, the last grey seal was hunted to the coast of Western Pomerania in 1920. In other regions decimated by hunters, the grey seal.

Factually, the fishermen had, with her accusation only half-right. "As the grey seals and common seals were gone in the 1920s by the German coasts, and have not recovered, the fish stocks," says Michael Dähne, as a zoologist at the German marine Museum in Stralsund, for marine mammals responsible. In the Bodden waters of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern cone catch seals usually just a percent of the floating fish, while sea birds swallow five times the amount. And eight per cent get anglers out of the water. Professional fishermen catch with 22 percent for the lion's share.

There, where they still existed, were continued in the second half of the twentieth century, then contaminants such as the insecticide DDT and the plasticizer PCB of the cone to seal. The many coasts of the Northern Atlantic live, the species was decimated a second Time massively. In 1980, thousands of grey seals living in 1900 in the whole of the Baltic sea were around a hundred, just 2500 animals left.

British immigrants to North German coast

Since that time, the species is strictly protected and recovered. Because in the UK a relatively large number of grey seals have survived, to reach the large predators of the German North sea coast. In 1983, a grey seal was probably the first Baby in the Wadden sea to the world. In 1993, the next milestone is reached: for the returnees, the first birth on the dune of the island of Helgoland.

"Today, around 6,000 grey seals between the Netherlands and Denmark on the North sea coast, and are protected in Germany by the Wadden sea national Park back to life," says Hans-Ulrich Rösner, head in Husum, Germany the Wadden sea office of the conservation organisation WWF. Alone on the dune of Helgoland, more than 400 small seals were born in the Winter of 2018/19, already the light of the world. Further moorings on sand banks in the case of the East Frisian island of Juist off the North-Frisian island of Amrum. "For the nature of this return, the largest predator in Central Europe is a great success," says Rösner.

In the Baltic sea and other sub-species of the cone lives of seals. Your Situation is different from that of the kinship in the North sea, where the stocks of approximately 30 000 animals have recovered. The German Baltic sea waters were the marine mammals, but long on the left. In 2004, the first cone appeared seals in the shallow waters between the island of Rügen and Greifswald. Today, some live around the island of Rügen, as well as some loner in front of the other coasts. Their number is however estimated to be not much more than 100. And continue the success they have planted so far at the German Baltic sea beaches.

The "Big Stubber" is too small

Perhaps because of the once-popular rest has disappeared almost completely. Those "Big Stubber" was Bodden is an island in the Bay of Greifswald, the flat of the Baltic sea between the Hanseatic city and the island of Rügen. He is already documented from the middle ages as a place where the animals were kept in their digestion, sleep,. But the island was getting smaller and smaller, because people from there were boulders as a building material to the island of Rügen and on the mainland. As in the 19th century. Century the Large Stubber also had to serve as a gravel pit for road construction in Greifswald, on the island. Since about 1950, he is history. Only at low water, a sand Bank with the last three boulders appear there today. Since gray seals have to lift the grid, but only its head out of the water, fit to be a missing island in the 21st century. Century as a resting place.

Only their young are no longer able to bring the females there as before. The weight of about ten kilograms heavy to carry babies when they were born with a white lanugo release-coat. It keeps them well warm, but not waterproof. So the females are looking in late Winter, a gravel beach as a nursery. Sometimes it's also a stable and large ice floe. Beaches there are on the island of Rügen and on the mainland, although enough of it. They are usually taken from other mammals whose coats do not consist of fat, but rather made of Polyester and viscose, in hardware. And since the Baltic sea cone, the memory of the Almost-extinction seems to be over the generations is not lost, looking expectant seals mother Seals prefer a calmer coast that you can find for example in Sweden or Denmark.

fish places with the Beard

The hundred miles there are only a days. With 15 kilometres per hour, you can be through the Baltic sea. In just three weeks, the mothers your feet soon the young with your extreme fat of milk from ten to 40 kilograms in weight. "A 150 kg heavy, healthy females losing weight during these three weeks on 100 pounds, his four inches thickness of fat layer shrinks to a centimeter," says Dähne. Then mother and child go their separate ways. The females mate already four weeks after birth, in order to bring eleven months later, the next baby seal.

The Junior has now changed his coat, and goes out into the sea to hunt. With your "beard hair" feel seals even the slightest water turbulence, the fish will throw many meters away in the Swim. So to find the animals for up to 20 minutes long dives, plenty more fish – if necessary, also into the nets of the fishermen. To get there, to the delicious meal, tearing the animals to a network. Fishing and bowling friends are seals.

grey seal offspring on the Baltic sea coast - in March will show whether he can survive

The fan base is large enough. The reason for the joy she had at 8. March 2018: Not far from Cape Arkona on Rügen, a 12.5-kilogram Cub was born. It is the first evidence for cone seal-young on the German Baltic coast for a century. A few days later, the holiday island of Usedom was on the beach another seal infant discovered. Both died shortly after their birth. Nevertheless, the chances are not bad that the great seals have one of the now often deserted pebble beaches on the island of Rügen soon more success. "In this Winter we have Robben, while still no cone births observed," says Henning von Nordheim, head of Department for marine nature conservation of the Federal Agency for nature conservation on Vilm island near Rügen in Northern Germany, "but in the past year, the first offspring came only in March."