The Waterleiding duinen.

Bird-life is abundant. Tiny warblers and finches flit through thorny scrub, a single tree is haunted by the dark shape of a rook, a swan stands powerful on the side of the path, guarding its mate and brood feeding by the river below.

We sit down with the children in high spirits and promise the first who hears a cuckoo a treat. They sit quietly. Several wild geese fly overhead honking softly. Finally, a cuckoo rewards us with its characteristic chant and I explain to the children that probably in some nest nearby, a fat little bird is shoving smaller babies or eggs out of their rightful nest.

We walk on until eventually we hit the shoreline, and descend a path onto an almost deserted beach. A large blue sign indicates that we have hit the nudist beach.  Quickly I explain to my children, who giggle and point at a naked man strolling down to the sea, that we are in fact the ones who are intruders on the beach and that we could even be arrested for having clothes on. They quickly loose interest and concentrate on picking up razor shells.

Heading to the beach.

But there is a dark side to all of this. The deer population in the dunes west of Amsterdam is exploding, and recent news reports say that the Fallow deer are causing havoc on three counts.

The animals are wandering onto the road and becoming a hazard to traffic, their voracious browsing could significantly diminish the variety of dune plants in the area, and they are consuming the produce, notably flowering bulb plants, of local farms.

So how did this situation spiral out of hand?

Deer are hard to miss.

The ongoing debate

Other solutions, such as moving the deer to another location, are impractical and tranquilising can't be done on a large scale because, according to the experts, it causes the animals too much pain. The idea of mixing anti-conception into the animals' food is also impossible for ecological reasons. So shooting remains the most practical solution.

Animal right's organisation's such as Dierenbescherming believe that shooting the deer should be avoided at all costs. They advocate the construction of even higher fences to prevent the deer from wandering out of limits, along with educating people to adapt their driving in high-risk areas.

Some predict that even if the deer are successfully fenced in, many will starve as the food supply diminishes - currently there are around 1500 deer in the area and the population is growing by around 30 percent a year.

Again, the animal rights group disagrees and believes instead that the population will naturally adjust itself to the supply of available food.

Amidst all this speculation, Waternet, the company that purifies the water used by Amsterdam and the surrounding region, and which is also responsible for managing the nature reserve, is continuing to collect as much information as possible through its research team to enable the Amsterdam City Council to make the best decisions on the management policy of the reserve.

Waternet is currently looking into the possibility of creating routes to enable the deer to move to new feeding grounds safely. Such a plan could also mean that he animals would migrate to areas outside of the Waterleiding duinen where no rules about culling have been drawn up yet. The water company is also looking into projects similar to one being run near Pisa, Italy, where cattle farmers have been persuaded take on deer farming instead.

Until the situation is resolved, be prepared to glimpse bambi on the beach as far up the dunes as The Hague.

24 April 2007

Natasha Gunn
Editor
Expatica Netherlands

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More information on Amsterdamse Waterleiding Duinen:

Information centre
1e Leyweg 4, 2114 BH Vogelenzang.
023 5233595

Camping near the Waterleidingduinen
Camping Vogelenzang (lit. bird song)

www.vogelenzang.nl

Other things to do in the area:

Linnaeushof
Should you tire of nature rambles, this mega children's playground is only 2KM away from the Vogelenzang campsite.

Keukenhof
For a few weeks each spring, you can appreciate the stunning multi-coloured tulip fields and park at Keukenhof (Until May 20).
+31 252 465 555

www.keukenhof.nl