STORKS COUNTED IN GERMANY

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 14

STORKS COUNTED IN GERMANY

MIGRATORY HABITS BEING INVESTIGATED VALUABLE DATA YIELDED LONDON. December 12. While the 200-odd «torks reared during the last few months in England were flying toward Africa, and those of Germany were flying by two routes toward winter quarters in the same clime, Dr. Schuez, director of the Rossitten Vogelwarte, in East Prussia, who furnished the 37 pioneers for the British colony, was interviewed by a correspondent of "The Times." The doctor had been taking a census of German storks. "In Germany," he revealed, "30,700 pairs were counted, more than half of which, 16,000, were bred in East Prussia. The densest colony was q&t in East Prussia, however, but' in Poland, in the district of Rudki, near Lemberg, where Count Wodzicki counted 106 pairs breeding within an area of 100 square kilometres. "In East Prussia the population has been increasing during the last 10 years, but it has remained small in the industrialised west of Germany and in the south, and in Switzerland it has been going down. The investigators at Rissitten hope that their work will not only be of scientific value, but will contribute to the preservation of the stork in those districts where it is rarer. "Ringing is the chief means of research. Every year in Germany rings marked 'Vogelwarte Rossitten Germania' are put on the legs of 5000 nesting storks, and finders of these rings report them back to Rossitten from various places along the route of migration and from the winter quarters in South Africa. "The stork is in general useful to agriculture. It destroys locusts in South Africa, mice and harmful insects in Germany. But, when present in large numbers it may do damage among game, developing an appetite for young pheasants and hares. For this reason it was found necessary to keep the population in East Prussia under control