Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park

About

Following a ruling by the Hamburg Parliament on 9 April 1990 the area was reclassified as the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park. On 5 April 2001, the law was updated and the national park area expanded as a result.

The total area of the national park (Zones 1 and 2) is 13,750 hectares (53.1 sq mi). The Zone 1 areas are under special protection, limiting mudflat hiking and horse and carriage rides to designated routes.

Within the national park, there are about 2,000 animal species, of which about 250 are endemic to the salt marshes of the Wadden Sea. Of particular note are the common seal and the gray seal. Due to the natural influx of sediment, there is a high concentration of food for young fish and seabirds at the mouth of the Elbe. The national park is, therefore, an important resting and molting area for seabirds.

For example, shelducks live on the snails that are found in hundreds of thousands on the surface of the mudflats. The approximately 180,000 birds of the north-western shelduck population spend also their molting period from July to September in the Wadden Sea, which is protected by the three national parks in the states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and…