Pine marten (Image: Scottish Wildcat Action) |
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It's been rather a long time since our last newsletter. However, as we hope this missive will make clear, we - as well as all of you contributors - have not been idle! Indeed, by several metrics, recent months have been both busy and successful. Here, we try to do justice to some recent developments - so, read on for more about an award for everyone involved in MammalWeb; our regular spotters league; developments in the team, the platform and our organisation; and brief updates on two different projects. In case that isn't enough, there are also details of our forthcoming Christmas competition, with hundreds of pounds-worth of Field Studies Council vouchers to be won ... |
| The National Biodiversity Network Group Award for wildlife recording, 2024 |
The National Biodiversity Network Awards for Wildlife Recording recognise and celebrate the outstanding contributions people are making to wildlife recording and data sharing, which is essential to improving our understanding of the UK’s biodiversity and assisting conservation efforts. We are delighted to announce that MammalWeb has won the 2024 NBN Group Award! This is fantastic recognition for the thousands of you that have participated in collecting, uploading and classifying camera trap data through the platform. In doing so, we have contributed thousands of new records to the NBN Atlas, providing much-needed information to improve the data on the occurrence and distribution of mammal species in the UK.
The prize was collected on behalf of MammalWeb by Russell Hill and Sammy Mason at the NBN conference at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool, last month. This award is testament to everyone's hard work and is shared among all our contributors. Congratulations!
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MammalWeb: winners of The National Biodiversity Network Group award for wildlife recording, 2024 |
| MammalWeb Activity, July to November |
Once again, the numbers of images classified during this period is staggering. Lynda averaged approximately 12,000 sequences a month to come out on top, which is an incredible contribution. All those listed above also invested massively in their contributions. Well done, all of you - and thank you to everyone who submitted classifications during this period! |
| Charitable status for MammalWeb |
We are excited to announce that MammalWeb has just been awarded Charitable Status. MammalWeb has been registered and operating as a not-for-profit organisation since 2018, but the move to charitable status is better aligned with our aims. The MammalWeb Charity will be dedicated to the advancement of environmental protection and improvement for UK and European wild mammals through: (1) enabling citizen science camera trapping by school children, enthusiasts, researchers, and the general public; (2) facilitating the use of data gathered for scientific, policy and management purposes; and, (3) enhancing the connection of people to nature and its benefits for health and well-being. While our regular contributors won’t notice much difference in our day-to-day activities, we hope the move will open up new opportunities to support our work. |
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MammalWeb can't claim to be as mature as this magnificent red deer stag from Argyll - but we continue to develop as an organisation, as our change from non-profit to charity demonstrates. (Image: Nick Littlewood) |
| Help Us Classify Camera Trap Images from the BTO Garden BirdWatch Project |
We are excited to share progress on the BTO Garden BirdWatch Project! With cameras deployed in 28 gardens across County Durham, Sunderland, Darlington, Teesside, and Newcastle, this collaborative effort has already captured an astounding 500,000 photos of garden wildlife. These images, featuring a fascinating mix of mammals and birds, have been uploaded to MammalWeb and are ready for classification on the BTO GBW NE Pilot sub-project. The sheer volume of images presents a thrilling challenge, and we need enthusiastic volunteers to help us classify them! Every classification helps advance our understanding of garden wildlife and uncovers the hidden stories of the wildlife in our gardens. Thank you for your support! |
Sample images from the BTO Garden BirdWatch Project (top left: hedgehog; top right: red fox; bottom left: roe deer; bottom right: European badger) (Images: kevshears [top row]; EXMorena [bottom row]) |
The last few months have seen progress and additions within the MammalWeb team. Huge congratulations to Sian Green, who recently passed her PhD with her thesis on "Mammal monitoring and public engagement with camera traps and citizen science". Many of you will have contributed to Sian’s projects on pine martens and the wildlife of the Forest of Dean. Amongst other things, she compared photo and video settings to determine their impact on the ecological data and on classifications contributed by spotters, finding that classifications of videos were more accurate and that spotters were also more likely to provide additional information such as the sex or individual identity of animals. Her thesis also addressed the influence of media on engagement with our social media posts, to help us to understand how we can better engage with our MammalWeb Community. We are letting Sian down by not including video in this newsletter! |
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Dr Sian Green with her fantastic camera trap cake following her PhD viva |
In October, we welcomed Keiron Young as a new PhD student with MammalWeb. Keiron completed his MSc in Wildlife Biology and Conservation at Edinburgh Napier University in 2015 and, since then, has been involved with various conservation organisations, such as the Forth Rivers Trust and Earth Love United Foundation. His background has mostly been in ecological consultancy, with a particular focus on badger ecology, and he has many years of experience in surveys, behaviour and wildlife management. His PhD will draw on this experience and he will be investigating the status of badger populations in the UK, seeking to extend the survey approach being used by the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme to survey areas systematically using camera traps. Badgers and hedgehogs can occupy similar habitats and are linked ecologically; in integrating efforts across the species we can significantly improve our understanding of the distribution and status of both. Initially, Keiron will be working with local badger groups, and there will be further updates in future newsletters as he expands his work to other regions. |
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Keiron Young, who will be working with MammalWeb and the Badger Trust |
| Small mammal monitoring in County Durham: an update |
Since the last update (writes Charlotte Sharpe), our adapted camera traps spent May-October collecting data on small mammals between Sunderland and Durham. Our design (detailed in the previous newsletter) has proved very successful, gathering about 30,000 high resolution image sequences, including captures of all native UK small mammal species, as well as some larger mammals that were brave enough to stick their heads down the tunnel. The quality of the images permits accurate species identification, representing a non-invasive technique that requires fewer fieldwork hours than live trapping. |
Some larger mammal species observed with adapted camera traps (images: cs0911) |
We tested four bait treatments in the camera trap survey, in order to develop the methodology. Peanut butter and oats is regarded as a universal bait for small mammal surveying in live traps, so this was our first bait treatment. In the second treatment, we used dried mealworms to encourage insectivorous species (shrews) into the traps. The third treatment used a mixture of these two baits, and a fourth treatment (a control) included no bait. As expected, all of the bait treatments increased the mean number of captures relative to the control. Overall, it appears that the mean number of captures for mice and voles doesn’t vary hugely between bait treatments, whereas the mean captures for all shrew species were highest for the mealworm baits (either the mealworm only or mixed bait). We would recommend the inclusion of mealworms in adapted camera trap set-ups, with the mixed bait likely to maximise captures across the range of small mammal species.
The survey was carried out in the centre of the currently known range of the non-native Greater white-toothed shrew, Crocidura russula. C.russula was recorded at only two out of eight surveyed sites, in forty sequences. Despite a growing number of records of C. russula in the UK, a species known to be a strong competitor in and outside of its native range, short-term concerns about negative impacts on native UK species may be tempered by our camera trap observations that native shrew species were observed more frequently and at more locations than the non-native shrew. The common shrew (Sorex araneus) and the pygmy shrew (Sorex minutus) were each captured in over a thousand sequences. Particularly for the pygmy shrew that has been rapidly displaced in Ireland by C.russula in the past 20 years, this is an encouraging result that suggests that the more diverse small mammal assemblage in the UK could provide a buffer against such negative impacts for this species in the UK. |
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Non-native (C. russula) and native (S. araneus and S. minutus) shrews captured using adapted camera traps (images: cs0911) |
| MammalWeb keeps on growing |
Part of the reason for our relatively long silence is that the growth of MammalWeb has been keeping us busy. As you can see from the graph below, since the last quarter of 2023, there has been a significant uptick in the rate at which new image sequences have been submitted to the platform. This has been accompanied by a rapid increase in the rate at which Spotters have been classifying the contents of image sequences. It will be apparent from the graph that classifications have not been keeping pace with uploads. However, a major reason for that is that – at the same time as the surge in data uploads – we also implemented behind-the-scenes AI. The models we use (both MegaDetector and Conservation AI’s UK mammals model) screen out false triggers (without wildlife) and images containing humans, leading to a more satisfying experience for Spotters, with fewer ethical concerns. This means that many uploaded sequences are not available for people to classify. That, in turn, means that projects often appear to make limited progress, even when they are; remedying the way that progress is measured is a priority for development early next year. Conservation AI’s model also suggests potential classifications for images containing wildlife. However, neither model is infallible, and a significant focus of the team’s work is on determining how best to make sense of what we learn from the AI model, plus the information we get from Spotters.
The speed at which our database has grown, and the welcome surge in platform usage, have led to some IT challenges. As always, Helen from Rhombus Technology has been hard at work identifying the cause of any problems, finding solutions, and innovating to keep the platform functioning well. The year ahead promises more developments to improve the user experience and smooth running of the platform, and to increase the speed at which we can make use of submitted information. |
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The growth of MammalWeb data over the past decade |
| MammalWeb Christmas Competition! |
As we enter the season for giving, we are once again running a festive competition with prizes up for grabs! Every classification that you submit between the 25th December and 24th January will count as one entry into a prize draw. So, the more sequences you classify, the higher your chances are of winning! We will draw the 3 lucky winners at random at the end of January 2025 and will contact them to arrange their prizes.
First prize is £150 to spend on Field Study Council Biodiversity Courses and/or Publications. Second and third prizes are £100 and £50, respectively, to spend with FSC. Good luck spotters - and Merry Christmas to all our contributors! |
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