Hunt­ing — renamed in game pop­u­la­tion reg­u­la­tion — will large­ly be dis­con­tin­ued and in the pold­er essen­tial­ly lim­it­ed to wild boar to pro­tect the flood pro­tec­tion sys­tems. How­ev­er, in an 80-meter-wide periph­er­al zone of the elon­gat­ed but very nar­row nation­al park, hunt­ing is still per­mit­ted to pro­tect the adja­cent agri­cul­tur­al areas.

The Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion does not con­sid­er this to be sen­si­ble. With the ongo­ing cor­po­rate land con­sol­i­da­tion, it would be bet­ter to cut the parcels in such a way that the bor­der does not lie on the edge of the for­est, but rather a part of the field mar­row sur­round­ing the nation­al park is attached to the parcels of the nation­al park own­ers. Then, in the future, game skim­ming could take place out­side, but on the edge of the nation­al park, which is nec­es­sary in order to min­i­mize game dam­age on the neigh­bor­ing field mar­row. The exten­sive hunt­ing qui­et in the nation­al park forests des­ig­nat­ed or planned as a total reserve is already lead­ing to the fact that a some­times high con­cen­tra­tion of hoofed game gath­ers there. That is why the hunt­ing reg­u­la­tions allow one or two dri­ven hunts even in des­ig­nat­ed total reserves. This is also use­ful and nec­es­sary in order to enable nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion and a healthy decid­u­ous for­est, at least until the preda­tors that actu­al­ly live in the Low­er Oder Val­ley have returned, such as wolf (Can­is lupus), Bear (Ursus arc­tos) and lynx (Lynx lynx). The wolf has the edge and is spot­ted in the area again and again. Hunters report that you can already tell their pres­ence in the game. The wolves come from the great forests east of the Oder. There has been no off­spring in the Low­er Oder Val­ley so far, but there is like­ly to be a lack of for­est and seclu­sion on the Ger­man side. So far there is no trace of bears and lynx­es, but there is of a gold­en jack­al (Can­is aureus).

The large preda­tors would also be impor­tant for the eco­log­i­cal bal­ance not only in the ungu­lates, but also in beavers and small car­ni­vores. Unhunt­ed, the lat­ter pose an enor­mous threat to mead­ow breed­ers, which have already become rare, such as lap­wing (Vanel­lus vanel­lus) or black-tailed god­wit (Limosa limosa) rep­re­sent. Research shows that the lit­tle preda­tors like fox (Vulpes vulpes), Rac­coon dog (Nyc­tereutes pro­cy­onoides), Mink (Neo­vi­son vison) or rac­coon (Pro­cy­on lotor) of large preda­tors like the wolf (Can­is lupus) can be kept in check. As long as these can­not devel­op their bal­anc­ing effect, the hunt for these small car­ni­vores is still sen­si­ble and nec­es­sary for bird pro­tec­tion rea­sons, even if the hunt­ing reg­u­la­tions of the nation­al park do not cur­rent­ly allow this.

As is well known, the right to hunt is tied to the prop­er­ty. On this basis, the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion already has four own hunt­ing dis­tricts, two are leased, two are man­aged by the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion itself and annu­al­ly issues inspec­tion cer­tifi­cates to local hunters. After the land reor­ga­ni­za­tion has been com­plet­ed, the Nation­al Park Asso­ci­a­tion will have more pri­vate hunts avail­able. Hunters who then want to per­form their func­tion in nat­ur­al equi­lib­ri­um are sought for the inspec­tion cer­tifi­cates that are then to be issued. In the nation­al park association’s own hunts, the focus will be on nature con­ser­va­tion, the hunters should only replace the miss­ing large car­ni­vores. Inter­ven­tions in nature should be as min­i­mal as pos­si­ble. Dri­ven and dri­ven hunts will play a major role. The indi­vid­ual hunt is con­cen­trat­ed on the for­est edges on the edge of the nation­al park, but inten­si­fied there if nec­es­sary in order to avoid dam­age to the game on the neigh­bor­ing field mar­row. In any case, the rifle and rifle are only fired unleaded.