Ecosystem services of many animal species underestimated

20’000 Eurasian jays shot annually in Bavaria

Bavaria is the only federal state in which the Eurasian jay has a hunting season.

In the ten hunting years between 2009 and 2018, an average of approximately 20’000 of these birds — so valuable to forestry — were killed each year as part of hobby hunting, The responsible ministry, according to a minor parliamentary inquiry from 2020, is unable to cite either an ecological or a reasonable justification within the meaning of the Animal Welfare Act for shooting this songbird species. It merely invokes the authorisation under the Federal Hunting Act to set a hunting season for this species.

In Switzerland, 1’506 Eurasian jays were shot by hobby hunters in 2021.

50 million fewer trees per year

Through hobby hunting of the Eurasian jay alone, Bavarian forests are deprived of the planting of approximately 50 million trees per year. Of the roughly 4,000 to 5,000 acorns, nuts, and beechnuts that a Eurasian jay buries as a food store each year, it retrieves only about half. The other half has the opportunity to grow into sturdy trees that not only sequester CO2 but, as deep-rooting trees, can also withstand a drier climate. This is an enormous ecosystem service that is being deliberately ignored by policymakers.

At the same time, Bavaria in particular has been pursuing the principle of “forest before wildlife” for decades. The fact that both roe deer and red deer provide significant ecosystem services is not considered worthy of mention by the State Ministry.

Roe deer and red deer as seed dispersers

The dispersal of plant seeds by roe deer and red deer — in their fur, between their hooves, or through their digestive tract — is an important contribution to the preservation of many plant species. Roe deer and red deer thus directly help plants to colonize abandoned or newly formed habitat islands. However, this contribution to the transformation of forests into climate-stable ecosystems is barely taking place in Bavaria. On the one hand, this ecological contribution is prevented by the intensive hobby hunting of the ruminating ungulates roe deer and red deer: the animals are barely active during the day; they hide as deep in the forest as possible wherever they can. On the other hand, red deer are not permitted to live on 86 percent of Bavaria's territory at all. If they leave the red deer zones, which make up 14 percent of the state's area, they must be killed, subject to hunting seasons.

It has long been known that intensive hobby hunting — extending well into the depths of winter — not only prevents ecosystem services for the forest but actually provokes damage to trees. Unfortunately, there are only a few large privately owned forests where effective countermeasures are successfully implemented through large-scale hunting-free grazing areas, the channeling of wildlife into less sensitive areas, and moderate hunting.

Every fourth roe deer in Germany is killed in Bavaria through hobby hunting — approximately 300’000 per year — as is every fifth red deer. The red deer cull, at 13’000 animals annually, is the highest in Germany. In order to achieve these hunting tallies, the so-called principle of fair chase has long been called into question at the hunts of the Bavarian State Forests. Not only professional hunters accuse the State Forests of violations of closed seasons and the shooting of nursing mother animals; the association Wildes Bayern also documented hunting-related offenses at more than ten forestry operations of the Bavarian State Forests in 2019 alone: these included shooting beside winter feeding stations, coursing hunts, driven hunts in March and April, and hunts within protected areas. A long-standing hobby hunter puts it bluntly: «State forests, princes, and many a hunting cooperative don’t give a damn about legal norms.»