Dates

Start: April 2019

Location

Kirr Island is the most famous salt grassland island in the National Park Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft. In the lagoon landscape of the Baltic Sea, Kirr Island is located in a sea tongue between the mainland coast of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the peninsula Fischland-Darß-Zingst. The flat island raises only a few inches above the water level of the bay in wide areas.

Size

108.750 m²

Kirr Island alone is 3.5 km long and 1.5 km wide and covers 370 hectares, which is equivalent to 3,700,000 square meters. The largest part of the island already belongs to the National Park. Nevertheless, about 1/4 of the island is privately owned - which equates to 108,750 m²!

Partner

Our partner in this endeavor is the Department of the National Park Vorpommern. As Lower Nature Conservation and Forestry Authority, the Department is directly allocated to the State Administration of Mecklenburg Vorpommern. In addition to the National Park Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft, the Department of the National Park also manages the Jasmund National Park.

The island of Kirr is an important breeding area for waders. There are currently 23 different coastal bird species who are hatching, including 140 pairs of redshanks, black-tailed godwits, oystercatchers, avocets, lapwings and sandwich terns.

A feature of the island are the eight breeding pairs of the dunlin. The subspecies schinzii, who is endemic to the Baltic Sea region, only occurs on the Island Kirr as a breeding bird.

Another faunistic rarity of the island is the only breeding pair of the ruff of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Without these individuals, the species on our coast is considered extinct.

On the Island Kirr, the association of the salt pasture, also called black-grass willow, is dominating. The black-gras willow is growing here, besides the common arrowgras, goose tongue, red fescue, sea thrift and alcali bulrush.

In the more humid and saltier areas, especially during heavy grazing, Andel grasses accruses, which are characterized by saltmarsh sandspurry and goose gras.

The typical formation of this plant is short lawn, as it has a high feed value and is preferred by birds, especially gooses, who are grazing the greenery.