Vanishing hamsters

The European Hamster once roamed the continent in such large numbers that farmers hunted it as a pest, but now the species is critically endangered in eight of 18 European countries.

One of the countries where the black-bellied critters are most at risk of vanishing is France, where only a tiny population survives. The European Court of Justice threatened France this year with a 17 million euro fine ($25 million) for its failure to protect the hamsters' habitat. A final ruling on that case, brought by animal rights activists in eastern France, has not yet been reached.

Many in the Alsace region on the border to Germany view the hamsters as a symbol of the area.

"When we built our house in 1970, we even had a hamster in our garden. But now, they are extinct in our village and the surrounding area," lamented Rudi Dreyer, a resident and member of the A.P-E.L.E activist group devoted to the species.

Each May, local environmental officers conduct a month-long survey of the area to measure how many hamster burrows exist in the region.

"The first thing I do is to measure the diameter with a ruler and then the depth. A six centimeter diameter means it probably belongs to a hamster," explained Roxanne Rey, one of the participating biologists.

An alarming drop

Burrows are essential for the hamsters, since they hibernate for up to five months over winter. When they wake up in April, they are on the look out for all kinds of green plants, seeds and roots.

"When we are surveying, we primarily find the burrows in fields with winter cereals, meaning winter wheat or barley, but the hamsters also like alfalfa and clover," said Roxanne Rey, one of the participating biologists.

The results of this year's hamster count won't be released until June. But last year, the surveyors found only 483 burrows - an alarming drop compared with thirty years ago, when there were 4,000 European hamsters in this area.

The decline in population is occuring despite the rodent being officially protected in France since 1993.

Conflicting priorities

A main culprit for the dwindling number of hamsters is corn, said Florence Bonnafoux from Alsace's Environmental Department.

Corn grows well in the Alsace's sunny alluvial plains, which farmers mainly used to cultivate wheat and other crops before. In the past two decades, the area dedicated to the corn has increased by more than 50 percent, making life difficult for unsuspecting hamsters.

"The corn is very short in early to mid-spring, so if a hamster started its hibernation in a wheat field and comes out in a corn field, it can very easily be eaten by a fox, or by a bird of prey," Bonnafoux explained.

While the ECJ is threatening fines against France for its lack of protection for the endangered species, the EU heavily subsidizes the cultivation of corn, the biggest threat to the Alsace hamster.

"It is actually quite remarkable that Europe gives subsidies to plant corn, but it also gives subsidies to protect the hamster. I think everyone can draw their own conclusions on how logical this is," said the local activist Dreyer.

But Bonnafoux's department is leading the way in changing policies relating to local agriculture by offering money to farmers who produce crops more conductive to the survival of the hamsters - 1,000 euros per hectare for a field of alfalfa and 200 euros per field of cereals.

Whether their efforts will be enough to persuade the ECJ against fining France for neglecting the species remains unclear. The court's ruling is expected by June, 2011 at the latest.

Author: Kate Hairsine (gw)
Editor: Anke Rasper