Wildvogel-Pflegestation Kirchwald e.V.

Sobre nosotros

In the autumn of 1983, Ms. Helga Steffens of the DBV (German Farmers' Union) in Mayen was brought a brown owl which had been injured by a car. The treatment was successful and the animal was released into the wild in a healthy state. This was the beginning, the initial spark, in Kirchwald. In 1984 the newly established Kirchwald Wild Bird Care Station was given official approval.

In the early days, Helga Steffens was able to cope with the care of the animals alone, but soon, with increasing patient numbers, she needed assistance Volunteers were added. These were soon complemented by community service workers and young people who were doing a voluntary ecological year in Kirchwald. Today the station is operated by a dedicated team of people who, with a lot of commitment and only low pay, work for the objectives of the Wild Bird Care Station. In 2002, the station created the hedgehog house with 57 boxes, 4 boxes each with a big run and, on the upper floor, a sufficiently large area as a winter hibernation space for the animals. In 2012 a school room was set up in the station, in which lectures are given on environmental educational issues, particularly for children and young people.

The Kirchwald Wild Bird Care Station has been working for almost three decades, and is much more than just a care facility for wild birds - it is an indicator, a mirror for negative, but rarely positive changes (eg, return of species after restoration measures) in our environment.

Massive human intervention in nature - intensive agriculture, buildings, transport, the transformation of whole landscapes - this permanent, negative influence means that the fate of individual animals, in particular endangered species, is immensely important. The reduction of our world to only a few halfway original and therefore currently still functioning islands of retreat makes taking care of the injured and diseased individual wildlife a significant task in species conservation. The identification and documentation of cases of poisoning gives us insightful data on dangerous substances introduced by mankind.

Tasks of the Wild Bird Station and rescue centre:
• We take care of abandoned chicks and young hedgehogs
• We take care of wild bird and hedgehog casualties
• We take care of malnourished, sometimes nearly starved, wild birds and hedgehogs
• We support and treat poisoned wild birds and hedgehogs, care for malformed wild birds and seek the reasons for this.
• We treat sick wild birds and hedgehogs (infections, parasitic diseases, etc.)
• We give lectures in schools
• We organise sponsorships

Anja Baronetzky has been the vet and President of the Kirchwald Wild Birds Haven since its foundation.

On request we can offer other net participants advice, give a presentation, and provide up-to-date information and contacts in the field of our work.