Recording Mammals Around Me - NMW Blog
Blog by Derek Crawley, Vice Chair of the Mammal Society
This blog kicks off the Mammal Society's National Mammal Week for 2022!
We all record things we want to remember, whether it be our holiday snaps with captions on who what where, or the program from the football or concert you attended. Natural historians have tended to keep a note book of their days spent outside which included what they saw, some latter to be published. Others keep lists of species seen on a day or over a year with some even a life, with promises to increase that list as time goes by. It used to be common practice to keep rare sightings and locations to ones self in order to protect them, but now it’s important to share those records so the right level of protection can be given. Additionally, if more people know the location of an elusive animal, there are more eyes looking out for them if nefarious actions are taken against them.
So who should record and what should be recorded? Ideally everybody and every thing! How do we know if a species is in decline if there are no records of how common they once were. You might think that the rabbit is common and not under threat, your memory may play tricks on you. When was the last time you saw a group of over 50 rabbits? I can remember some sites where this was common back in my youth but not recently. You do tend to remember the more unusual or rare sighting of a stoat, but how many of those do you see in a year?
The method of recording has become easier with electronic devices and apps. Mammal Mapper is the Mammal Society’s latest recording app which allows you to either record ad hoc sightings, like a dead hedgehog on the road, or to carry out a transect surveys for a particular species, which tracks your progress and time spent looking for the mammal. Once I have found the mammal I can take a photo and send the location time stamped on the record, then continue with my survey.
What happens to that record is it gets uploaded to iRecord, a general natural history record database run by the British Records Centre (BRC), who administer the verification process for these records and others records sent in by other groups. Each specialist group of species has its own group of verifiers, the Mammal Society helps with verification of land mammal records with help from the Bat Conservation Trust (BCT) for bats. We help recruit mammal experts (county recorders) for each county and they look at each record to agree the identification is correct. This is done by looking at the level of confidence for each record depending on the expertise of the recorder, the species and type of record (live specimen or field sign) plus the location against known distribution. All verified correct records then get sent to the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) where the public can access them, they also get shared with local county record centres.
What are these records used for? At a local county basis they help or hinder planning applications and influence site management plans. At a National level they help inform the State of Nation reports and influence government policy. The Mammal Society also use them to publish atlases (Atlas of the Mammals of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.) and help establish the species population status Red List and Occupancy Trends. Although some species have regular national surveys which also help monitor there status, it is from this work that we know we need more data on the distribution of harvest mice, mountain hares and otters. Three species you can eat involved with recording this week and the rest of the winter months!
Derek Crawley is a valued and is currently an active member of the Mammal Society as Vice Chair. Derek is Chair of the Staffordshire Mammal Group and a Regional Coordinator for the National Harvest Mouse Survey.
The theme for National Mammal Week in 2022 is Recording Mammals Around You. Did you know that mammals are some of the most under-recorded species in Britain! With one in four of our native mammals threatened with extinction, and many others are in decline we need your help. Consider becoming a member of the Mammal Society today for as little as £3 a month.