Leavin’ on a Jet Plane!

Just when I thought there was no place worth emigrating to, comes word from former east-bloc city Karstaedt, Germany, that more than 2,000 schools in eastern Germany have closed due to falling birth rates.

For the last three decades, birthrates in Germany have lingered at 1.37 children per woman, one of the lowest in the world and far below the 2.1 figure that is seen as the benchmark for stable population growth. In eastern Germany, however, the birthrate plummeted to 0.77 in the years after reunification, the lowest level ever recorded.

Whoo-hoo! I’m moving there for some peace and quiet!

Now, of course, the silver lining comes shrouded by a cloud. Seems all the slacker young men of the area have stayed behind at the Mom Hotel while their bright young female counterparts have long since fled.

Roving packs of losers concern me, but the lure of an agricultural area being reclaimed by wildlife sings its siren song!

Elsewhere in Brandenburg, as the human population recedes, the animal kingdom is recovering lost territory. The crane and the white-tailed eagle have reappeared, and wolves, absent for more than a century, now roam the forests of Brandenburg and eastern Saxony.

"Unlike the people in this area," the Berlin Institute study notes, "the wolves have enough offspring that their future existence is guaranteed."