Need to be cared for

Hamsters, bats: animal housing in Vienna

An endangered and strictly protected field hamster in the George Washington courtyard in Favoriten.

(Bild: FOTOGRAFIEFE FETZ/STUDIO F)

Vienna's municipal buildings are home not only to humans, but also to many animal "tenants" - and they too have needs that cost the city some effort. 

There is a simple reason why hamsters are now on the Red List of strictly protected species: their habitat is open grasslands, and there are fewer and fewer of these - keyword soil sealing. The exception to the rule can be found in Vienna of all places: it is estimated that there are around 3000 field hamsters in the city. Many of them live in municipal buildings, especially in the George-Washington-Hof in Triester Straße.

"Right to a say" for animals in renovations
The community housing hamsters have become something of a trademark of Favoriten's community housing. Most residents see the potholed lawns between the houses as a decoration rather than a nuisance.

For both the residents of George-Washington-Hof and Wiener Wohnen, it has only been the last few years that have led to a rethink. The city is now aware of the importance of municipal buildings and their green spaces for the ecological balance in the city and looks after the animal inhabitants of municipal buildings.

The six million square meters of green spaces in the municipal buildings offer considerable potential as habitats for our animal inhabitants. This stands for a high quality of life for everyone - whether human or animal.

Wohnbaustadträtin Kathrin Gaál (SPÖ)

Bild: Zwefo

In addition to hamsters, swifts, falcons, bats and many other species are also community building residents by conviction. Replacement nesting sites are now regularly created for them during renovations or new builds - if no attempt is made to spare them during construction work anyway. 940 roosts for birds have been created in recent years during construction work on municipal buildings. The record holder is the renovation of the Salvador-Allende-Hof: 38 nesting towers - a Viennese development - and 32 bat roosts were installed, and an existing kestrel nesting site was even successfully relocated.

The animals even have a say when it comes to the timing of building work: because the building breeders among the bird species always return to the same breeding sites, experts from the Vienna Environmental Protection Department (MA 22) are consulted before major building work is carried out in order to coordinate the work with the species' breeding season. As with the human inhabitants, there are even "replacement homes" as an extra service - with the installation of replacement nesting boxes and artificial nests.