Vogelkoje Meeram, Duck trapping facility in Amrumer Dünen, Germany.
Vogelkoje Meeram is a historic duck hunting facility on Amrum island with a central freshwater pond and curved channels extending from it to funnel birds into traps. The site preserves the physical layout and structures that made this hunting method possible.
The facility developed in the 1800s and operated as an active hunting site for several decades before falling out of use. It represents a period when organized duck hunting was an established practice on North Sea islands.
The name Meeram comes from the heath where the facility was built between Norddorf and Nebel. The cooperative sold shares (Lose) to islanders, who had first refusal and could buy at most two each, keeping outside investors out. The catch was divided among shareholders as a dividend, and later ducks were also delivered in bulk to a canning factory.
A nature trail leads through the terrain past the square pond and across the surrounding heath and dunes, with several information boards along the way. The site lies about 2 km south of Norddorf and 2.5 km from Nebel's centre, at the northern tip of Nebel's municipal area, east of the Amrum dunes nature reserve. To the west it borders the island's archaeological area, where a reconstructed Iron Age building was erected in 2014.
Between 1867 and 1935 the Meeram catch totalled 417,569 ducks, about 90 percent of them pintails. The keeper Cornelius Peters, who ran the site from 1867 to 1890, left a diary recording the catches. The whole site was ringed by a broad ditch crossed only by a drawbridge, raised during the catching season.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,120 contributors worldwide.