Mammals

This report concerns survey and monitoring methods for squirrels in the UK and was commissioned by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and the People's Trust for Endangered Species.

This is a projected series of annual reports on the work carried out by the Partnership, bringing together in one place the wealth of available information.

Covering all aspects of bats including health & safety and is an essential reference for anyone wishing to obtain a licence to carry out bat work in the UK.

In 2001, a group of organizations interested in the surveillance and monitoring of mammal populations in the UK met to discuss priorities and possible approaches. This group, currently informally known as the UK Mammal Network, identified a number of schemes (currently in operation or in the planning) stage that could be integral components of a UK-wide mammal monitoring strategy. One of the schemes is the multi-species mammal monitoring carried out by many participants in the BTO/RSPB/JNCC Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). Although summaries of the mammal component are regularly reported in the annual BBS reports (see Noble et al. 2001), there have, to date, been relatively few analyses of these data or attempts to identify population trends. This report provides an overview of the BBS mammal data collected to date, presents some preliminary population trends for mammal species monitored in sufficient numbers, and outlines approaches for future analyses and reporting of these data. This is NOT intended to be an exhaustive report on UK mammal trends as revealed by the BBS. Clearly, there is considerable scope for more comprehensive examination of these data, but that would require much greater effort than was possible in this contract.

Presents an account and snapshot of the distribution of all 28 cetacean species that are know certainly to have occurred in the waters off north-west Europe in the last 25 years, but including also narwhal and melon-headed what for which records are as recent only as the 1940s. The atlas comprises chapters on methods, individual species accounts including natural history and distribution, and international protection of cetaceans.

A study by The Forensic Science Service for The Joint Nature Conservation Committee and The Environment and Heritage Service, Northern Ireland

Details the threats to bats, their need for conservation plus general and species specific guidance on habitat management.

The British Trust for Ornithology was commissioned by JNCC to undertake an exercise to extend the work of Macdonald et al. The results of this exercise are presented in this authoritative and independent report by the BTO, which should provide great assistance to JNCC, and other potential partners, to develop further their views, priorities and role with regard to mammal monitoring in the UK.

The British pine marten Martes martes population was heavily persecuted in the nineteenth century, particularly in England and Wales. By 1914 it was reduced to inhabiting a small area of northern Scotland, with a smaller population said to occur in Wales and several small fragments in northern England. A survey based on scat searches on 700 m transects, carried out at a density of one per 10 km x 10 km square over 1980-82, showed that the Scottish population had increased its range in recent years.

Using game bag records and county mammal reports, past changes in the numbers of hares in Britain are described. There appears to have been a widespread decline in hare numbers following the introduction of the Ground Game Act 1880, with declines occurring even earlier in parts of the west, where hare numbers have shown little signs of recovering thereafter. In central and eastern areas, hare numbers increased at various rates up to the Second World War.