National Small Mammal Monitoring Scheme - get involved
Please reply to sussexmammalsurveys@...
Dear All,
National Small Mammal Monitoring Scheme
Hello, I'm Sam Finn and I am going to be your point of contact for mammal surveys and for borrowing traps on behalf of the Sussex Mammal Group for the near future.
Please find attached an outline of the National Small Mammal Monitoring Scheme project which has just been sent out to the County Mammal Groups from the Mammal Society. Unfortunately this has been sent out with not much time to spare; we need to organise the surveys in Sussex as soon as we can as the first survey sessions need to be carried out during October and November this year!
If you are interested in taking part, please respond before Friday 9th October. We will need to know where you live and you'll need to give us a four figure grid reference of where you live (e.g. TQ1234).
When we have an idea of which volunteers are interested we will then send off the list of grid references of where volunteers live to Simon Poulton at the Mammal Society so that he can randomly generate some tetrads within a 10km radius of where you live. We will then send the tetrad info back to volunteers so you can pick where you would like to carry out your surveys.
You can do whichever surveys you like from the list (the more you can do, the better!), but if you've not had experience with small mammal trapping before then we won't be able to lend you the traps but we may be able to come and help you.
October surveys will include Barn Owl Pellets, Bait-tubes, Harvest Mouse nest search and Field Vole signs search.
November survey will be Longworth trapping (low density option, so 10 traps in one site set at 10m apart, left for one night only.) We have to do this in November as this is the only time when the traps are available; we have 70 traps in total to lend out.
The next survey sessions will be held in April/May next year in the same places.
If you would like to be involved with a small group of people, rather than doing it by yourself, then let us know. If you're in the Brighton area the chances are that there will be a few people interested in doing this. If there are enough people perhaps we could have a team of people that do two sites between them?
Your help is greatly appreciated.
All the best,
Sam Finn
Sussex Mammal Group
c.o. Sussex Biodiversity Record Centre
Woods Mill
Henfield
West Sussex BN5 9SD
Sussex Wildlife Trust is a company limited by guarantee under the Companies Act. Registered in England, Company No. 698851. Registered Charity No. 207005. VAT Registration No. 191 305969. Registered Office: Woods Mill, Henfield, West Sussex BN5 9SD. Telephone 01273 492630
