Weilheim-Schongau district: Hunters want to saw off hunting advisors

• Schongau’s city forester, Klaus Thien, has been the district’s honorary hunting advisor for ten years.
• He has an impressive track record. Nevertheless, work is being carried out in the background to saw it off.
• The hunters feel that they and their concerns are not adequately represented in the hunting council.

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district – The hunting advisor is a voluntary expert who advises the district administration – in particular the lower hunting authority – on hunting issues. It also supports the Hunting Advisory Board, in which members of various bodies – such as the Bund Naturschutz or the Kreisjagdverband – are represented, in its work.

Klaus Thien has been a hunting advisor in the Weilheim-Schongau district for almost exactly ten years. Initially, although he was actually the city forester of Schongau, he was solely responsible for the Weilheim district. As in 2018 his colleague from the western district. Ludwig Gschmeißner, who retired, Thien took over his area of ​​responsibility at the same time and has been responsible for the entire district ever since. In this context, a hunter, Stefan Zimmermann from Raisting, was appointed as his deputy. Thien’s track record is impressive: As forest owners report, game browsing decreased significantly during his tenure, although the game population is still stable.

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For years there has been a crunch between the Lower Hunting Authority, the Hunting Advisory Board and the Hunting Advisor on the one hand and the Hunting Association on the other. The hunters in particular feel, as it is said behind closed doors, that their sensitivities are not given sufficient consideration. There is talk of feeling “bullied by foresters and environmentalists”.

Points of contention in the past were the feeding ban in winter and the shooting plan, which is drawn up on the basis of the vegetation report. In both cases the hunting advisor advises the Lower Hunting Authority of the District Office. The bickering has grown louder since the chairman of the Weilheim district hunting association, Florian Pfütze, became a member of the hunting council a few years ago. There he is fighting “at a losing stake”, it is reported. As a rule, the votes would always end with a vote against – that of Puddle. Incidentally, Puddle had run for the district council in the local elections on the CSU list.

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Hunters – often represented or advised by AfD politician, lawyer and passionate hunter Rüdiger Imgart from Weilheim – have led more than 30 legal proceedings against the Lower Hunting Authority in recent years. All were lost. The reason given is that hunting advisor Klaus Thien, whose job it is to represent the hunting rights and not the hunters, has repeatedly given the district office good advice.

Nevertheless, Thien is now to be sawed off and, according to information from the local newspaper, replaced by Manfred Berger from Peiting, the chairman of the hunting and nature conservation association Schongau and the surrounding area. A hunter, not a forester. The representative of the Federation of Nature Conservation in the Hunting Advisory Board is said to have been urged to give up his office, it is reported.

The acting hunting advisor of the Weilheim-Schongau district, Klaus Thien, declined to comment on this topic on request, but indicated that he could well imagine continuing the office of hunting advisor. The chairman of the district hunting association Weilheim, Florian Pfütze, who is to be instrumental in promoting the replacement of Thiens, could not be reached for a statement, and requests for recalls were ignored.

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In view of the fact that the tussle behind the scenes has now become public, efforts are being made at the district office to limit the damage. When asked why Klaus Thien should be replaced, the press spokesman for the District Office, Hans Rehbehn, wrote: “Mr. Thien’s term of office as hunting advisor for the Weilheim-Schongau district ends on March 31st. At this point in time only preliminary talks were held. It is therefore an open procedure. The hearing of the hunting council will take place soon. Then the Lower Hunting Authority will decide. “

When asked which qualifications a hunting advisor must have, it says: “The hunting advisor must be a holder of a hunting license, but not a territory owner. Mr Thien naturally fulfills this requirement, otherwise he would not have been able to be appointed as a hunting advisor. ”The question that remained unanswered was why a forester like Thien, who is represented in several hunting associations and has a hunting lease, should be less qualified than a hunter without additional qualifications as a forester. Instead, Rehbehn announced that Thiens’ good professional advice in the numerous legal proceedings of the hunters against the district “played no role in the decision”.

Many of the responses from the district office are evasive or not available at all

There was no statement from the District Office on the allegations that massive pressure had been exerted on the representative of the Bund Naturschutz to resign: “Mr. Lang was appointed as a representative of the Bund Naturschutz and the Schutzgemeinschaft Deutscher Wald in 2017 on a mutually agreed proposal. Mr. Homeister was appointed as deputy ”, was Rehbehn’s answer to this question.

The development of the forest condition and the game population is a success indicator for the work of a hunting advisor. He advises the lower hunting authority on a voluntary basis, which supports the development with suitable measures.

In response to the question of the development in these crucial questions in the ten years in which Thien has already been a hunting advisor, Rehbehn writes: “The initial situation in the Weilheim-Schongau district in terms of forest regeneration has been difficult for years. Game browsing is too high in many areas. Nevertheless, we see the development of the forest condition in the last ten years as generally positive. The browsing situation has improved in many areas. Unfortunately, there are also conservation communities and areas where the browsing is too high or significantly too high. There is still a need for action here. We are not aware of any endangerment of certain species due to intensive hunting. “

District council should be left out

The district council should not be heard on this matter. When asked whether its committees will be included in the debate about the replacement and the decision, or at least informed, Rehbehn briefly stated: “The hunting advisor is appointed by the Lower Hunting Authority as a state authority after hearing the Hunting Advisory Board. The district council has no jurisdiction here. “

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