It is the small relative of the edible dormouse, feels at home in orchards, but also at the higher levels of mountain ranges and can be unmistakeably identified by its “Zorro mask”: the garden dormouse. The garden dormouse lives only in Europe, and a large part of its range lies in Germany. That is why Germany bears a great deal of responsibility for the worldwide survival of the garden dormouse. Garden dormouse numbers have decreased massively in the last decades. It has already died out in many regions in Germany. There is no knowledge about the causes for this to date.

Our goal: We want to secure the existing garden dormouse populations in a large part of their German range.

That is why Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz BUND (Friends of the Earth Germany), together with the Justus Liebig University Gießen and the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, is now looking for reasons. The project “In search of the garden dormouse” is funded by the Federal Programme for Biological Diversity.