Żabie Doły is a nature and landscape protected area in Silesia

Silesia

Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...

, Poland. The Żabie Doły complex is located entirely within the Upper Silesian Metropolis and encompasses land heavily altered by human activity. The protected area covers 2.262 km² . At Żabie Doły, 129 species of birds have been identified, including 70 nesting species and 17 species rare in the region. Other fauna and flora is also well represented.

The name ""Żabie Doły" can be roughly translated as "Frog Ditches".

Location and history

The Żabie Doły conservation area is located entirely within the limits of the cities of Bytom

Bytom

Bytom is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The central-western district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - metropolis with the population of 2 millions. Bytom is located in the Silesian Highlands, on the Bytomka river .The city belongs to the Silesian Voivodeship since...

, Chorzów

Chorzów

Chorzów is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. Chorzów is one of the central districts of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - a metropolis with a population of 2 million...

 and Piekary Slaskie

Piekary Slaskie

Piekary Śląskie is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The north district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union - metropolis with the population of 2 million...

 in the center of the highly-urbanized region of Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia

Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, the Duchy of Bohemia, the Piast Kingdom of Poland, again of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and the Holy Roman Empire, as well as of...

.

Many centuries of human activity, in particular underground mining

Mining

Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...

 and metal smelting, left the area covered with unused water retention pools, post-mining sinkhole

Sinkhole

A sinkhole, also known as a sink, shake hole, swallow hole, swallet, doline or cenote, is a natural depression or hole in the Earth's surface caused by karst processes — the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes for example in sandstone...

s, tailings

Tailings

Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...

 and slag heap

Slag heap

A spoil tip is a pile built of accumulated spoil - the overburden removed during coal and ore mining. These waste materials are generally composed of shale, as well as smaller quantities of carboniferous sandstone and various other residues...

s. The local mining included zinc

Zinc

Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...

, lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

, and hard coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

. The majority of the land transformation by the humans occurred in the 1950s. The discovery of its current biological richness was a surprise.

The area received the legally-protected status in 1997, partially due to the interest of high-school students (from high schools in Bytom and Louisenlund, Germany).

Legal status

The Żabie Doły area has currently a status of the "nature and landscape complex" within the legal framework of the protected areas of Poland

Protected areas of Poland

Protected areas of Poland include the following types, as defined by the Act on Protection of Nature of 16 April 2004:* 23 National Parks...

. Currently, efforts are under way to further upgrade the status to that of a nature reserve

Nature reserve

A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...

.