material hoses, fold coatings of drive shafts and guidance. Low voltage cable or its insulation, isolating mats for the noise and insulation.

Experts estimate the annual repair costs of damages caused by martens up to 50-70 million euros

Resultant damages: After a marten attack usually only the recovery service is a help!

Bitten high tension cable can lead to igniting troubles (uneven motor run).
Provided that the motor doesn't die anyway, it is to warn against a continuation of the journey, since unburned fuel can cause damage to the catalyst.

Faulty rubber cuffs immediately aren't noticeable in the driving operation. Leading washing out the grease filling or penetrating of dirt and water result into strong damage to the components.

This can lead to an endangering in the area of the guidance. In case of repair with high subsequent costs is to be calculated! Water loss by cooling water hoses eaten away can lead to motor overheating !!!
Often the consequence is a major engine trouble.

The fatal one: Consequences of these bite damages don't make themselves noticeable immediately in the normal driving operation. You stand out first after several driven kilometers
or at an inspection!

Why does the marten bite?

Martens love dark, warm and dry places. For this reason engine compartments arouse particularly its interest. The marten male takes the new domicile into possession and leaves smell traces. Once the vehicle leaves its location and is parked in the district of another male Marten, a big probability is given that another male Marten is attracted by it and tries to remove the smell traces of his rival, irritated to the utmost. Nothing is safe now in front of his sharp teeth.

• Real marten
  Tree marten, beech-marten, colored marten, fish marten, sprucewood marten and sable
  
• Stinking marten
  Polecat, ferret, steppe polecat, black foot polecat, tiger polecat European mink, north-American mink, ermine and mouse weasel
  
• Sub-family
  Badgers, vipers and skunks

The marten - an omnivore

The beech-marten (martes foina) almost was wiped out by humans at the beginning of the fifties. Because of their fur, the slim cat size beasts were hunted mercilessly of prey. The stock has increased to about 250,000 animals in Germany in the meantime.

Since a long time they have lost the early shyness about cities. Parking cars simply were included in the natural day room. The know, that engine compartments represent interesting caves is bequeathed further to generation of generation and so more always spreads of the south to the north. Beech-martens are omnivores with a distinctive reconnaissance behave: Everything which seems interesting will be taken into the mouth around to be able to judge it.
The mating time starts with end of June. Therefore the area fights reach their highlight in May.
There were the first cases at the end of the seventies that beech-martens chewed rubber and hose parts inside of engine compartments of motor vehicles in Switzerland and in South Germany. There are cases of damage in all of Europe in the meantime.

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