Tabloids in Germany were not slow to trumpet the news, which quickly spread on social networks: city Erfurt in the state of Thuringia is ready to spend almost 2.5 million euros to relocate 39 hamsters inhabiting an area where a school is planned to be built. Journalists from "Bild" newspaper have calculated that moving one animal will cost 64,102 euros.
Why is it so expensive?
"In the case of Erfurt, it is indeed a very large sum," says Stefan Petzold from the German environmental organization NABU. According to him, it turned out to be quite difficult to find a suitable new place for these mammals, which are threatened with extinction in Germany.
European hamsters live almost exclusively in the fertile farmland of the lowlands, where they can easily burrow into the soft plowed soil and find food. But in recent decades, modern farming methods and pesticides have virtually destroyed their habitat, and Germany has lost 99 percent of its hamster population.
"Animals have adapted to their surroundings and cannot live anywhere," Petzold explains. Therefore, it will first be necessary to find a suitable field in which to prepare dens for the hamsters. The environmentalist explains that the territory will have to be planted with cereals in order to increase the chances of survival of the animals. The hamsters will be moved to the new location, then monitored for years - to see how well they have adapted to their new environment.
Petzold believes that the media outrage over the construction project in Erfurt has been exaggerated. "It's not the hamsters that are holding this project back, it's bad planning. If the project managers had been informed in time, they would have found an alternative location."
"The protection of species is one of the biggest obstacles to construction,", says Klaus-Martin Groth, a former judge in Berlin. According to him, investors in Germany are never sure if they will be able to realize their plans in the end.
Groth's company intended to invest 60 million euros in a business park in Berlin's Marzan district, but the capital's administrative court banned the construction because of possible harm to local green frogs. According to Groth, the strict nature protection requirements end up creating fewer homes, fewer schools and fewer jobs.
In June, Berlin passed a bill designed to speed up the city's planning, approval and construction processes, particularly in the housing sector. The city council decided that in this regard some laws affecting the protection of species should be simplified - as far as EU and federal legislation allows.
But environmentalists question whether the proposed changes will really speed up the processes. And are they even admissible. According to NABU's Verena Riedl, under German law builders are required to "take precautions to avoid preventable damage" and biodiversity violations must be "compensated". The federal law is based on EU regulations that aim to protect wild flora and fauna in Europe. That is, the rules for the protection of endangered species are the same for everyone throughout the EU.
Not only hamsters, but also bats, ants and beetles
This is not the first resettlement of hamsters in Germany. Not far from Magdeburg, the American company Intel is preparing to build a plant worth 30 billion euros. Hamsters were moved from the 400-hectare site and released elsewhere.
German railways also regularly relocate animals living near a new line or station: rare birds, lizards, frogs and even whole anthills.
In Dresden, however, the construction of a bridge over the Elbe River was postponed because of a rare species of bat that is threatened with extinction in Germany. Especially for them, bushes were bought and planted for 200,000 euros, and in order to protect the bats, there is still a speed limit of 30 km/h in the area.
"We have to protect species while they are still around, because if they die, there is no way to bring them back," says NABU's Verena Riddle. And Stefan Petzold adds: "The protection of species is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity". And indeed: around a third of all species living in Germany are already endangered.
Author: Martin Kübler