Surface area percentages of, and the efficacy of biotope improvement measures for, brown hare, pheasant and partridge in the agricultural landscape of Lower Saxony

Project description

Biotope improvement measures within the framework of agri-environmental programmes or greening as well as the creation of flowering areas and other measures by hunters and nature conservationists make an important contribution to the preservation of small game populations and agricultural birds; however, it can be assumed that the proportions of near-natural areas (fallow areas, flowering strips, field and ditch margins, hedges as well as copses) realised so far are not sufficient for a comprehensive recovery of small game populations and higher proportions of areas must be demanded.
The following measures are planned in this project:

- Compilation of a summary overview of the various measures implemented so far as well as the near-natural, permanent habitat structures at regional and local level in relation to the conventionally (and ecologically) farmed agricultural areas.
- Modelling the correlation of population developments over the last 10-20 years and the population densities of hare, pheasant and partridge in relation to habitat factors (cultivated crops etc.), habitat structures (borderlines, habitat structures, diversity etc.) at regional level in Lower Saxony.
- Evaluation of the effectiveness of agri-environmental programmes, greening and other biotope improvement measures on small game populations, taking into account weather conditions, using weather data (e.g. temperature, precipitation, frost days, extreme weather conditions, etc.) from the German Weather Service.
- Habitat structure and land use mapping as well as spotlight counts are carried out in selected reference hunting grounds, some of which have been involved since 1994, distributed over Lower Saxony,
- In areas with a higher proportion of action areas, new reference sites are acquired and mapped; especially pilot project areas for small game are preferably established as reference areas,
- The aim is to process and set up 30-50 reference territories which, after the end of the project, will continue to carry out spotlight counts independently under the guidance of staff from the Landesjägerschaft Niedersachsen as part of the wildlife census and the nationwide wildlife information system of the German federal states.