Национальный парк Баварский лес

National Park in Bavaria, Germany

The Bavarian Forest National Park (Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald) is a national park in the Eastern Bavarian Forest immediately on Germany's border with the Czech Republic. It was founded on 7 October 1970 as the first national park in Germany. Since its expansion on 1 August 1997 it has covered an area of 24,250 hectares. Together with the neighbouring Czech Bohemian Forest the Bavarian Forest forms the largest contiguous area of forest in Central Europe.

Especially protected are the Norway spruce–dominated highland forests, mixed mountain forests of European silver fir, European beech and spruce trees and water meadow spruce woods in the valleys. Although a few remnants of ancient forest remain, the National Park area is still heavily influenced by the former forestry industry. Since nature is now left to take its course again, there is no human intervention when there are catastrophic events such as large scale bark beetle infestation. This resulted in the death of a portion of the high elevation forests in the 1990s and triggered controversial discussions amongst the residents of the National Park, which highlighted differing attitudes to the wilderness. As the result of a compromise, bark beetle is now fought in the buffer area. The highest peaks in the National Park are the Großer Falkenstein , the Lusen and the Großer Rachel In addition to the forests, there are also ecologically valuable raised bogs with bog lakes such as the Latschensee and former high meadows, the so called Schachten, which spread even further on the Czech side of the border in the Bohemian Forest. With over 700,000 visitors per year, the National Park is an important economic factor in the economically underdeveloped region of the Bavarian Forest.

The park is home to many rare mammals such as the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), wildcat (Felis silvestris), beaver (Castor fiber), Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra), western barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus), Bechstein's bat (Myotis bechsteini) and the greater mouse eared bat (Myotis myotis). Also present are red deer, of which two thirds of the population overwinter in an enclosure, in order to prevent excessive grazing to the land. Even moose have been recorded in the park, from a population in the Lipno Reservoir, Czech Republic. Lynx were eradicated from the National Park in around 1850, but in the 1970s five to ten were released into the park, along with another 17 released in the Šumava national park a decade later. This resulted in an initially strong increase in the lynx population in the region, but between 1995 and 2008, the population decreased significantly. This was possibly due to the illegal killing of the animals on both the Czech and Bavarian sides. Brown bears are not found in the wild in the park. In 2016, a pair of wolves was discovered in the park.

Many rarely seen species of birds are found in the national park. These include capercaillie, hazel grouse, peregrine falcon, European honey buzzard, black stork and Eurasian pygmy owl.

In the national park over 1800 beetle species have currently been identified, including 14 ancient woodland specialist species. Very rare insect species such as Tragosoma depsarium, a longhorn beetle which can only be found in forests rich in dead wood.

Rare and endangered plant species which are found in the national park include the Hungarian gentian, Swertia perennis and the mosses Buxbaumia viridis and Dicranum viride.