De Levende Natuur nummer 3 van 2024 (English summary)

Culling stone marters protects meadow birds

The stone marten population in Fryslân has been increasing rapidly since 2000. Monitoring the nest success of over 5,500 meadow bird nests, using camera traps, and gps-tracking of stone martens and meadow bird chicks showed that the stone marten can locally be a significant predator of nests and chicks of meadow birds. In 2018, culling of stone martens was implemented as a conservation tool and grew from 1 to 19 sites in 222. It is only done at sites where conservation measures in landscape management and agricultural practice are taken, and where fox and black crow were already culled or did not play a significant role in nest predation. We show a positive effect on nest success of culling when performed optimally: the average proportion of nests that hatched was 50 % in the year before stone marten management and 78 % during the culling years.

Stopping wood harvesting improves biodiversity at Het Loo

At Het Loo Royal Estate stopping with wood harvesting on suitable locations is leading to a greater diversity in trees and brushes and a greater volume of starving and dead trees. This is reflecting on the diversity and density of ants and beetles characteristic of dead trees. This shows that stopping tree harvesting at suitable locations can have positive effects. At the same time this small research on relatively rich soils shows that even here there is a deficiency of nutrients, accumulation of nitrogen and an acidic soil. This pleads for a rapid reduction of nitrogen deposition, but also for research on the degree of degradation and the recovery perspective of forests, for example through local testing and monitoring of soil restoration measures.