expensive relocation of lizards near Stuttgart

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Re: expensive relocation of lizards near Stuttgart

Postby Thomas Reich » Fri May 12, 2017 3:12 pm

Here’s what I was thinking after reading these newspaper articles:

No question that there’s a law and it has to be followed. So Deutsche Bahn has to relocate the lizards. At the same time it’s not surprising that they did public relations in order to complain about the enormous costs and that this would cause some kind of public indignation. So far so well. But what does that generally mean for reptile conservation?

I think this kind of PR is very bad for the acceptance of nature conservation in general and therefore counterproductive. We are talking about protected but not extremely rare animals here. It also shows that, as a land owner in Germany with intention to build something on your ground, you’d better get rid of the reptiles and other protected species as soon as possible before public authorities get wind of their existence. Lucky if your ground is sterile without any living animal on it...

I also don’t dare to think about what else could have been done with that amount of money to protect and promote reptiles and their habitats (albeit I know that the money is bound to the construction project and also used for compensation areas). Is it really wise to invest so much money to relocate allochthonous Podarcis muralis? And assuming that the compensation site is not isolated (I hope so), the native sand lizards would colonise the new site on their own sooner or later anyway.

So in short, I think these very strict regulations are not exactly brilliant (in German: nicht das Gelbe vom Ei) and some sense of proportion for the good of the whole would certainly be better.
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Re: expensive relocation of lizards near Stuttgart

Postby Peter Oefinger » Sat May 13, 2017 12:13 pm

I see the dilemma, Thomas: 15 mio. sounds like a lot of money.
Anyhow - what would be the alternatives? Spend the money for really endagered species? Who decides which species are worth it? Should we only start to protect species when they are close to extinction?
There's high risk that nature protection would become somehow arbitrarily. Therefore I think, the current rules are not so bad.
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Re: expensive relocation of lizards near Stuttgart

Postby Michal Szkudlarek » Sat May 13, 2017 3:31 pm

"Anyhow - what would be the alternatives?"
propagate antinatalism- it is better for wildlife in long-run
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Re: expensive relocation of lizards near Stuttgart

Postby Mario Schweiger » Mon May 15, 2017 8:34 am

in German language only :(
but what is really interesting: the "German lizard" hybridize with its Italian relative.
And what comes out: Physignathus cocincinus :lol:
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Re: expensive relocation of lizards near Stuttgart

Postby Thomas Reich » Mon May 15, 2017 9:37 pm

Peter Oefinger wrote:Should we only start to protect species when they are close to extinction?

Hi Peter. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that one should only protect rare species. I just think that one should spend the money that is available for nature protection as efficiently as possible. And this is by far not the case here, in my opinion. And I personally would not spend money to protect an allochthonous species.
As for the public acceptance, I'm probably too Swiss oriented, where the same people that got indignant over the expensive lizards will possibly decide on the national nature protection programme one year later.

Mario Schweiger wrote:but what is really interesting: the "German lizard" hybridize with its Italian relative. And what comes out: Physignathus cocincinus :lol:

Journalism's crowning glory :roll:
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