The Nilgans introduced from Africa has also been at home in Germany for several years. Now the invasive species in this country is even spread for the first time than the domestic gray goose. Your stock has almost doubled within six years, as current numbers prove. The Nilgans can already be hunted nationwide. However, it is controversial whether it makes sense to regulate the stocks of non -regional kind by hunting.
The Nilgans (Alopoche Aegyptiaca) originally comes from Africa, but has also felt increasingly comfortable in northern areas given the climate change for several years. The residents noted by humans therefore also increasingly settles in Europe. This could lead to conflicts with the domestic fauna. Because the invasive Nilgans competes with other birds for food and breeding sites. This may displace other water bird species. The Nilgans also cause trouble in agriculture and swimming lakes because it eats crops and dirty the meadows and lakes with their feces.
Nilgans on the advance
Now new figures from 2023 show: The Nilgans in Germany is now widespread than the gray goose (Anser Anser). The invasive Nilgans occurs in 54 percent of the hunting grounds that “only” domestic gray goose in 51 percent, according to an evaluation of the German Hunting Association (DJV). Almost 24,000 hunting grounds had participated in the recording across Germany; This corresponds to about a third of the agricultural and forestry area of Germany. Accordingly, the existence of the Nilgans has increased by almost half within six years, but the existence of the gray goose only rose by about a quarter. This is primarily due to the fact that the Nilgans are fighting for more and more breeding areas and is now breeding in 26 percent of the areas, as the association explains. The gray goose, on the other hand, “only” breeds in 20 percent of the areas.
The most common Nilgans, who is currently in northwestern Germany, is most common, especially in Bremen, Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia. From there, it increasingly spreads to the east and south. The domestic gray goose focuses on the north German lowlands, most often also in Bremen and Hamburg. The water bird has always had the slightest distribution in Baden-Württemberg, Saarland and Thuringia.
Hunting to regulate stocks?
In 2017, the EU officially included the Nilgans in the list of non -regional invasive species. According to DJV, this goes hand in hand with the obligation to control its inventory and, if necessary, contain it in order to prevent ecological and economic damage. At the moment, hunting for Nile geese is already allowed in all federal states, but with different loyalty and regulations for young animals. Incidentally, the same applies to the hunt for local gray geese, only in Berlin and Thuringia is completely prohibited.
The hunting association now demands that the Nile geese nationwide be able to chase “according to uniform standards”. From an ethical point of view, this is more sensible than possible later killing alternatives. “Ten years ago we had a huge geese problem in the Netherlands, caused by a complete ban on hunting. The goose stands and thus the damage have exploded. Tens of thousands of animals were finally driven together and killed with gas. This is ethically questionable because the meat was initially destroyed and the animals had to suffer a painful suffocation,” says DJV President Helmut Damann-Tahmke. According to a recent survey, a large part of the Germans advocated the hunting of the Nilgans: eight out of ten people stated that hunting was ethically justifiable if stocks of animal species were regulated.
According to the nature conservation organization NABU, hunting has hardly a noticeable effect on the spread of neozoa like the Nilgans. In addition, it has not yet been clearly proven that this type of geese causes ecological damage: there are no sufficient evidence that other types of birds are replaced by the spread of the Nilgans. Therefore, it is not necessary or justified to reduce the stock by hunting. In fact, the stocks of domestic gray goose have not declined in recent years, but also increased – just not at the same pace as that of the Nile goose.
Sources: German hunting association, Nabu
