Description
With its large proportion of forests and bodies of water, Luxembourg actually has good conditions for a rich variety of wildlife. Over a third of the country is covered by forest, for example. Luxembourg is therefore also home to around 70 species of mammals.
The young wildcat, roe deer, badger, fox, and hare depicted on the motifs are a representative selection of all the mammals in our local forests and fields. The population of some species is now unnaturally high (e.g. roe deer). By contrast, the populations of various other mammal species are declining in Luxembourg (e.g. the brown hare), and some were even temporarily threatened with extinction (e.g. the badger). This is mainly due to human intervention in nature, which alters habitats. Increasingly sealed soil areas, intensively used agricultural land, but also the increase in invasive species are real threats to some native mammals.
Protecting young animals is crucial to preserving biodiversity. This is because the inexperienced and curious young animals are particularly vulnerable to threats like heavy traffic, agricultural machinery and foreign species.
Fawns and young hares, for example, spend the early stages of their lives in hollows in fields and meadows, where they are naturally less well protected than, for example, young badgers in the safety of their burrows. Young foxes can also be very trusting. In addition, the mothers often leave their young alone for several hours during the day, leading walkers to mistakenly believe that the little ones have been abandoned. One or two animals are taken with good intentions, but this should be avoided at all costs, because in the vast majority of cases a mother animal is deprived of its child and such an approach is also counterproductive for nature as a whole.