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25.11.2024

Documentary on Black-tailed Godwit conservation

ARTE shows powerful film on Black-tailed Godwits, the project and the NLWKN

Last Friday, the German/French TV channel ARTE released a 45-minute film on the conservation of the Black-tailed Godwit, for whose conservation the State of Lower Saxony bears a special responsibility. Producer Torsten Mehltretter mainly filmed at the Dümmer region, but also in Portugal and West Africa.

In the film, LIFE IP GrassBirdHabitats project manager Heinrich Belting shows why it is so important to protect this bird species as a representative of many other meadow birds, and how this is being done at the Dümmer. “Today, the meadows at the Dümmer are flooded using adjustable weirs. This way, the water level is set to what it was naturally before the lake was embanked in 1953.”

The film provides a detailed insight into the nature conservation work of the NLWKN and the project. The camera accompanies the project team as they work on water management, breeding success monitoring, scientific ringing and predation management. Although predation – the loss of clutches, chicks or adult birds to predators – is a natural process, the losses of meadow birds in nature conservation areas are very high. Predators also find much better living conditions in conservation areas than in an otherwise species-poor and monotonous landscape. The ARTE film shows both the successes and the current challenges of meadow bird conservation in Lower Saxony.

Looking beyond the regional borders, the special significance of other countries where the Black-tailed Godwits spend the winter and where they rest on their long journey is made clear. The river estuaries in the Mediterranean area, for example, with their lagoons and shallow water basins for salt production, are important in this respect. Impressive images show how important harvested rice-growing areas are, for example at the Tagus river in Portugal. Here, too, it is important that the areas are wet when the Godwits are foraging in large numbers. The agricultural conditions in the rice-growing areas in Senegal also play an important role for the conservation of the Black-tailed Godwit. Measures to protect this species are therefore also being implemented there, as part of international cooperation.

The film can be watched online for three months in the media centre of ARTE. It is available in German and French. Watch it on ARTE: Uferschnepfen – Unterschätztes Federvieh

Since 25 January 2025, the film is also available on YouTube. There it supports automatically translated subtitles for many languages, including English and Dutch. Watch it on YouTube: German & French


Black-tailed Godwit standing on a wooden post in front of a meadow.
German title card of the documentary, stating "Black-tailed Godwits – Underestimated fowl".