To address the issue of
assessing the changing abundance of mammals over time, in 1996 the
then DoE and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC)
initiated a scoping study to investigate the ways in which a mammal
surveillance and monitoring network might be set up and run, which
resulted in the report
Proposals for
future monitoring of British mammals (Macdonald
et
al., 1998). A further study,
Developing a mammal
monitoring programme for the UK (Toms
et al.,
1999), built on and developed some of the proposals of the first
report. Both reports looked at the feasibility and costs of setting
up a network and the survey methods that could be used for
different species.
A very important recommendation
from both scoping studies was to bring all the existing information
and organisations together and provide a coordinated structure for
future monitoring and surveillance work. It was recognised that the
provision of population trend information is a long-term and
complex activity and could only be achieved with the joint
co-operation of all existing mammal organisations. With this fact
in mind the
Tracking Mammals
Partnership (TMP) was launched in July 2003, with the
aim of producing population trend information for all resident
terrestrial UK mammal species.
Reports
Past surveys should not be
ignored, because many have provided the sound basis on which
to build a comprehensive surveillance and monitoring network. Over
the past 30 years a large number of surveys have been carried out
to assess the distribution and abundance of individual mammal
species and the results of those surveys are listed here in a
series of reports.
The Tracking Mammals
Partnership now has a range of surveillance schemes in the
Surveillance and Monitoring Programme,
and organisations running the schemes produce annual reports of the
results, with information on the
methods used, species and area covered and the most up-to-date
detailed trend information. Those reports are also included here in
pdf format.