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Wildlife charity invites you to play ‘I-spy mammals’  

© Lauire Campbell: Rabbit.

This summer, the People's Trust for Endangered Species is calling on the public to join in a rather unusual game of ‘I-Spy’ when they are out and about on Britain’s highways. The wildlife charity is launching its annual UK-wide Mammals on Roads survey which asks motorists to record sightings of any mammals they spot from their car or van in order to build up a clearer picture of the state of our wildlife populations.

Since 2001, volunteers have been recording mammals they have seen on road journeys during July, August and September. Comparing counts year on year means that we can spot changes in wild mammal populations across the country early enough to act upon. Constant monitoring of our wildlife is vital to understand the issues facing individual species and inform decisions about how best to take action to help them. This year marks the ninth year that the survey has been carried out – each time building a more complete picture of both the abundance and distribution of the UK’s wild mammal populations and permitting long-term analysis of trends which may otherwise be overlooked.  

Mammals on Roads takes place throughout summer when both wildlife and people are particularly mobile – young animals may be leaving the parental home and human families are setting off on holiday travels of their own. Due to the nature of this survey, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species is appealing to groups of people travelling together – particularly families – to take part and record mammals, both alive and dead, that they see during the course of journeys of 20 miles or more.  The charity is hoping that this year will have the biggest response yet with many Brits on a budget deciding to holiday at home in the UK.

“Around one million mammals are killed on UK roads each year, so it is a sad fact that many of the mammals recorded will fall into this category, “ says Jill Nelson, CEO of the People's Trust for Endangered Species. “However, the extent of roadkill spotted for each mammal is related to the number of those mammals in the wild, so it is important that we monitor these trends in order to provide an indication of how our wildlife populations are faring.”

The survey began in 2001 as the National Hedgehog Survey, but the scope has since been widened to include other native species. To date over half a million kilometres of roads have been monitored by the British public and the many thousands of mammal sightings logged each year enable year-on-year comparisons to be made and the longer-term picture for Britain’s wildlife to be assessed.

Despite the fact that hedgehogs remain the second most frequently spotted mammal on our roads, recorded sightings along roads in England decreased by 7.5% each year for the first four years of the survey and showed a similar decline in Wales – a rate of decline greater than that assigned a 'red alert' by conservationists, equivalent to a loss of 50 percent over 25 years. Along with results from the Trust’s 2006 HogWatch survey, data from Mammals on Roads was one of the key factors leading to hedgehogs becoming a priority species in the 2007 review of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. David Wembridge, PTES Survey Officer adds “Hedgehog numbers have shown steep declines in recent years and we are funding vital research into the reasons why, so it is essential that we continue to monitor them.”

At the last count, hedgehogs seemed to be showing slight signs of improvement although it is too early to draw any defintive conclusions. Other species with the dubious honour of joining hedgehogs amongst the top mammals spotted on Britain’s roads are…

Mammals on Roads is carried out under the umbrella of the Tracking Mammals Partnership – a collaborative initiative, involving 25 organisations with a variety of interests in UK mammals, which aims to improve the quality, quantity and dissemination of information on the status of mammal species in the UK.

To take part in Mammals on Roads, visit www.ptes.org/surveys, email mor@ptes.org or call 020 7498 4533 to request a survey pack.