Join the Mammals Trust summer survey

How you can make a difference in helping to understand population trends among UK species

Counting animal road casualties during car journeys may sound slightly macabre, but it can provide highly useful information to Mammals Trust UK in its bid to keep track of how different mammals are faring, both regionally and nationally. That’s why the organisation is just about to commence its seventh summer survey.

Such is the value of previous Mammals Trust UK (MTUK) surveys that GEM decided earlier in the year to provide assistance with this year’s efforts, according to chief executive David Williams. “We decided that we would contribute £1 for every new GEM member we recruited in the first three months of 2007. We were thus delighted to hand over a cheque recently for £1028 towards the administrative costs of the 2007 Mammals on Roads survey.”

“Taking part in the survey is easy,” explains MTUK chief executive Jill Nelson. “We ask people to log the beginning and end of any road journey greater than 20 miles and to note the location of any mammal sightings – both dead and alive -- along the way. A survey pack with recording forms and a guide to identifying different species is provided. By the way, please don’t stop and get out of the car in order to make a more accurate identification of an animal!”

Each year MTUK produces a digest of the facts discovered in the survey. These are disseminated to everyone who helped out. “Although over a thousand volunteers have helped us so far, we really need more people willing to assist,” adds Jill Nelson. “After all, the more people we have taking part, the more accurate the final record will be.

“We are also naturally delighted that GEM has made such a generous donation. We can assure all members that this will be put to good use not only in helping make this year’s survey as worthwhile as possible but in other initiatives designed to help animals in our countryside.”

Jill explains that one particular species highlighted recently as being in difficulty is the hedgehog. “Mammal populations do fluctuate naturally over the years, but we know areas where hedgehog numbers have dropped by 20 or even 30 percent,” she says. “Counts of hedgehogs 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.

“If this trend continues it is equivalent to a high Red Alert decline, a term used by conservationists to refer to a loss of half the population in 25 years.”

David Williams is enthusiastic about the new link between GEM and MTUK. “Mammals on roads clearly have a road safety implication, as we know that many single vehicle crashes on rural roads can often be because the driver was suddenly swerving to avoid an impact with a wild animal.”

Play your part…

To receive a survey pack for this year’s survey, or to find out about the work of Mammals Trust UK visit their website, www.mtuk.org. Alternatively, call 020 7498 5262 or write to Mammals Trust UK, 15 Cloisters House, 8 Battersea Park Road, London SW8 4BG.