Top 20 Lakes around Laboe

The natural area features numerous protected areas in almost all protection categories. Only a small number of areas are designated as true nature reserves, including the Alter und Neuer See bird sanctuary south of Sulzheim-Mönchstockheim. Another larger area is the Dürrfelder and Sulzheimer Wald fauna-flora habitat, which is also one of the largest forest areas within the Steigerwald foothills. The area is also part of the Schweinfurt Basin and Northern Steigerwald Foothills bird sanctuary.

The lake is leased by the Schleswig-Holstein State Sports Fishing Association. Apart from two small shore fishing spots in Tökendorf, fishing is only permitted from rowing boats.

There is an official bathing area on the lake in Schlesen and Tökendorf, but problems with blue-green algae and cercariae regularly occur there.

Water sports Edit The use of the lake for water sports is severely restricted by the owner. Surfing and canoeing are strictly prohibited. Sailing is permitted only by residents with written permission and for a fee, which no one currently uses. Otherwise, the lake may only be used for fishing with rowboats licensed by the State Fishing Association.

According to fishing results from 1992 and 1993, the lake appears to have only a low fish density. According to the investigation, this is probably due to a lack of food for the young fish, caused by low zooplankton densities. In terms of biomass, the lake has stocks of the following species in descending order of fishery importance: bream, roach, perch, pike-perch, pike, carp and eel. There is also evidence of rudd, silver bream, gudgeon, ruffe, burbot, tench, crucian carp and mudminnow. There is no known recapture of the large whitefish that were introduced as stock a few years ago, which would indicate a possible stock.

The lake's shores, some of which are protected, are breeding grounds for many bird species. Regular breeding birds include white-tailed eagles, bitterns, marsh harriers, goldeneyes, red-crested pochards, teals, tufted ducks, mallards, coots[3], mute swans, Egyptian geese, greylag goose, Canada goose, great reed warblers, marsh warblers, sedge warblers, reed warblers, great crested grebes, herring gulls, black-headed gulls, and cuckoos. The lake is also an important moulting site for tufted ducks. A natural spectacle regularly observed in autumn is flocks of starlings, sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands, which, after spectacular flight maneuvers, seek roosting grounds in the lake's reed belt. Another natural spectacle, this time in winter, is the incursion of sometimes thousands of cormorants, especially during periods of marginal ice formation on the nearby Baltic coast.

There is a reed belt in the shore regions. The dominant species there is the common reed. The widest reed beds are on the western side of the lake, while on the southern side there is a silting area dominated by floating-leaf plants of various species. A study in 1991 identified 18 reed species and 14 submerged species. The lake was classified as eutrophic in a scientific study. The water is therefore cloudy and mostly colored by various algae.

The lake is located in a typical young moraine area in the Probstei. During the Ice Age, tongues of ice advancing from the north deepened the area of today's lake. Its shape was preserved by dead ice after the glaciers retreated. The terminal moraine of the Selenter ice edge can still be found in the south of the lake. The lake is one of the calcareous polymictic lakes, with unstable temperature stratification in large parts. Only in the deep basin does a stable stratification occur in summer.