Scheckente Luzern

The Steller's eider (Polysticta stelleri) is the smallest and rarest of the four eider species and the only member of its genus within the duck family. Its breeding range lies entirely within the high Arctic, stretching from Russia's Taimyr Peninsula across eastern Siberia to Alaska, with strongholds in the Lena and Indigirka river deltas and along the coast of northern Alaska. Breeding pairs use small tundra lakes and pools in hummock and peat-mound tundra. Outside the breeding season the species is strictly marine and winters in a few narrowly defined coastal areas, including Norway's Varangerfjord, the Kola Peninsula and the Baltic coasts of Estonia and Lithuania. Only very small numbers reach the western Baltic on a sporadic basis.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland the Steller's eider is a textbook vagrant. Single birds, usually displaced by winter storms, are recorded mainly along the German North Sea and Baltic coasts; inland records are exceptional. The German ornithological umbrella organisation Dachverband Deutscher Avifaunisten documents only 27 records along the coasts of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein between 1975 and 1997, which underlines just how unusual a sighting is. For hunters in the DACH region an encounter is therefore a rare wildlife observation rather than a hunting situation.

From a legal standpoint the position is unambiguous. The Steller's eider does not appear on the lists of huntable species under the Federal Hunting Act or the state hunting acts. It is protected solely under general species-protection legislation, namely the Federal Nature Conservation Act and the EU Birds Directive, and is therefore subject to a year-round closed season. Killing, capturing or deliberately disturbing the species is prohibited. Particular care is needed on the coast to rule out confusion with the huntable sea ducks such as the common eider, common scoter or velvet scoter.

Globally the conservation outlook is serious. The IUCN Red List classifies the Steller's eider as vulnerable. The world population was estimated at around 220,000 individuals at the end of the 20th century after a decline of roughly 40 percent during the second half of that century, with several more recent estimates substantially lower. The European wintering population is estimated at between about 7,700 and 20,000 birds and is considered to be in long-term decline. Key threats include habitat change in the Arctic breeding grounds, climate warming, lead poisoning from ingested shot, bycatch in coastal gillnets and oil pollution on the wintering grounds. Any confirmed observation in Central Europe should be reported to the responsible avifaunistic records committee.