Residents of the Canal du Midi can apply for a bat lodge or a bird nest.

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Symbiosphere

  • Because of the colored canker, at the origin of the felling of 25,000 plane trees over the last fifteen years, the Canal du Midi has seen its fauna disturbed.

  • To maintain the presence of birds and bats along its banks, Voies navigables de France has installed 900 nesting boxes in recent years.

  • Residents are invited to participate in this experience by welcoming shelters to their homes.

This is one of the consequences of the arrival of colored canker on the banks of the Canal du Midi.

For 15 years, nearly 25,000 plane trees affected by this deadly pest have been felled and, with these cuts, a housing crisis has emerged.

The great tit or the pipistrelle had indeed taken the habit of nesting in the numerous cavities on these trees, whose alignment made the notoriety of the watercourse registered in the world heritage of Unesco.

After having installed nearly 900 cozy beds for them on the trees still standing so that they could resettle there, Voies navigables de France (VNF) decided to offer residents of the canal to offer them food and shelter.

“When we started slaughtering, we immediately thought about replanting, but we also thought about what we were losing.

We have started inventories and looked at the protected species present because we have a responsibility towards this biodiversity, ”explains Emilie Collet, environment manager at VNF ​​Sud-Ouest.

The first nesting boxes installed on the banks are regularly used by Petit-Ducs and Rollier d'Europe and their occupancy rate of 65% continues to grow.

“We were the first to land on the river, but we said to ourselves that we had to go beyond the canal, especially where there is a void, where the colored canker has affected many trees.

The committee of experts then said why not involve the population, ”continues the project manager.

Real ecological monitoring

An appeal to residents of the watercourse has therefore just been launched to welcome 430 bird and bat shelters.

To become the host of one of these lodges, you must live between 5 and 10 km near the canal, have a tree that can support the installation of a nesting box and, above all, commit to ensuring ecological monitoring on the duration.

And register on the site created for the occasion.

Residents of the Canal du Midi can apply for a bat lodge or a bird nest.

- Symbiosphere

“Sometimes it takes a year or two before they work.

The idea is not to go there every day, but at certain times.

We are in the process of developing an application where observations can be entered.

It's a way of doing participatory science and a way to have large-scale statistics, ”suggests Emilie Collet, who hopes that schools will apply.

Once the selection of participants has been made, the first lodgings will be distributed by the end of the year.

With the hope of seeing nesting in the spring the first European Roller, remarkable thanks to its electric blue.

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  • Planet

  • Languedoc-Roussillon

  • Bird

  • Biodiversity

  • Bat

  • Canal du Midi

  • Montpellier

  • Toulouse