Easter is just around the corner and at least the children are hoping that the Easter Bunny will bring lots of chocolate eggs. But its real role model, the hare, does not have it easy in Germany. Agriculture, road traffic and urban sprawl have bothered him for decades. Nevertheless, there is good news: 2022 was a good year for the brown hare, its stocks grew by 13 percent – slightly more than the average of the last 20 years.
The hare was once common in the open countryside of Germany, along with the partridge, hamster and lapwing. But the monocultures of modern agriculture, settlements and roads have increasingly decimated and fragmented their living space. The hares lack herbaceous field edges to provide food, and perennial fallow land with wild herbs has shrunk from almost 9,000 square kilometers to about 3,000 within the last decade.
Hare counting in the headlights
In order to find out how many brown hares there are in Germany and how the stocks are developing, there is a large hare count every year in spring and autumn. To do this, biologists, but also hunters, lie in wait in 463 reference areas throughout Germany at night and direct standardized searchlights at precisely defined routes. All hares that appear in the cone of light are counted. By counting in spring and autumn, it can be determined how the population develops as the young animals are added – and whether the growth rate can compensate for the death rate.
The German Hunting Association has now published the balance sheet for 2022 entered in the wildlife information system of the federal states. According to this, in spring 2022 there were an average of 16 hares per square kilometer in German meadows and fields, and in the north-west German lowlands there were even around 24 hares per square kilometer. However, the net growth rate of the hare population is pleasing: it has increased slightly compared to the past two decades. In 2022 there was an increase of 13 percent nationwide, three percentage points more than the year before.
Favorable weather and a west-east gradient
One reason for the slightly positive development is the weather: According to the German Weather Service, spring 2022 was the third sunniest since measurements began – and that suited the hares. Because heat and dryness are crucial for the survival of the young rabbits in the first few weeks of life. However, there were increased losses again in late summer and autumn: The summer of 2022 in Germany was very sunny and dry and was one of the four warmest since records began. As a result, hare food such as herbs and grasses dried up faster than usual.
There is also a clear east-west divide in the hare population. According to the counts of the hunters, there are about 18 animals per 100 hectares of open landscape in North Rhine-Westphalia, in Brandenburg or Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania only four to five. “It has a lot to do with the type of farming. It is smaller in the West. On the huge fields in the east, the hare can hardly find any hiding places from its many enemies,” explains wildlife biologist Andreas Kinser from the German Wildlife Foundation. There are strongholds of brown hares mainly in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, in the Münsterland and in northern Bavaria.
Better times could dawn for the Easter bunny in the coming year: The regulations of the European Union stipulate that from 2024 at least four percent of arable land in Germany must lie fallow if farmers want to assert their entitlement to EU agricultural payments. This could help to create more natural habitats for brown hares, partridges, hamsters and the like in the field. Maybe by Easter 2024 there will be a few more colorful eggs in the Easter nests.
Source: German Hunting Association, German Wildlife Foundation