There is growing interest across Europe in developing the involvement of volunteers to collect biological observations. A common part of this development is the setting up of a data portal, where observers can submit their biological records for verification and adding to a national database. A portal has been developed in Ireland by the National Biodiversity Data Centre and this video give an introduction to the system.
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
The new Atlas of the Mammals of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been published. Covering both terrestrial and marine mammals, the atlas draws on more than 1.8 million observations from a variety of sources. For terrestrial species, the atlas uses the Ordnance Survey National Grid (Great Britain and Ireland) at a resolution of 10km. For marine species, a wider area is covered, with the resolution depending on data availability.
The atlas can be ordered directly from the publisher:
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
Today, the EMF is a co-signatory, along with many organisations and individual scientists, to an open letter to the EU, asking for the Water Framework Directive to be defended against any weakening of the strong protection it gives to aquatic and wetland habitats, which are widely threatened across Europe.
Droughts, floods, wildfires are on the rise in Europe. Resilient water ecosystems are more vital than ever. But 60% of freshwater ecosystems in the EU are not healthy.
The EU Water Framework Directive is an integrated and holistic environmental legislation, designed to ensure that we will have healthy and resilient freshwater bodies to support people and nature, today and in the future.
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
The European Mammal Foundation has today (5/5/2019) joined with other European scientific and conservation organisations to call on the European Parliament to undertake a far-reaching reform of the Common Agriculture Policy. Our open letter can be found here.
Over the last few decades, the CAP has driven an intensification of agriculture including the simplification of landscapes, an increase in the use of pesticides and the destruction of semi-natural grasslands and uncultivated land. Together, these practices have had a very significant impact on wildlife. Invertebrate populations have been severely affected, leading to declines in farmland birds and mammals, which are still continuing today.Without a fundamental reform of the CAP, such negative trends will not only diminish nature in current EU member states but will also threaten the nature of candidate ones.
We call on the EU to undertake an ambitious and fundamental review of the CAP to ensure that it will deliver sustainable and diversified agriculture through spatially-targeted measures supporting smaller farms which carry out sustainable farming and maintain high nature value farmland. This can be achieved by truly aligning a future CAP with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs.
European Mammal Foundation
Societas Europaea Herpetologica
Societas Europaea Lepidopterologica
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
It is with great sadness that we report the death of our good friend and colleague Jan Zima, who died on 26th March 2019. He had been ill for some time.
Jan, known as Honza to his friends, was one of the editors of the first Atlas of European Mammals, published in 1999 and joined enthusiastically with our new project to prepare a second edition. He was present at our meetings in Rome and Prague and just last week had submitted a species account for Sorex araneus, which we will use as a model for our new atlas.
Jan was one of the most accomplished mammalogists in Europe, with a publication list of about 200 papers in international journals as well as many monographs, books and book chapters. This year, along with Jeremy Searle and David Polly, he published the multi-author book Shrews, Chromosomes and Speciation, a subject in which he had long been interested.
As well as being an outstanding researcher in both field and laboratory, Jan was also a gifted and experienced administrator and an important figure in the organisation of vertebrate research in the Czech Republic. He had a long association with the Institute of Vertebrate Biology in Brno, where he was Deputy Director, he was a Member of the Academy Council of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and he was also a member of the scientific councils of 7 universities and 4 research institutes. Truly a key figure in Czech science.
Our thoughts are with his wife and family at this sad time.
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
A Confe
rence on The Mammals of Russia: Faunistics and Problems of Theriogeography will take place in Rostov-on-Don on 17-19 April 2019.
The conference, which will help to deliver the EMMA2 project, will include sessions on the following themes:
- Local and regional mammal faunas
- Structure and dynamics of mammal distribution ranges
- Mammal phylogeography
- Introduction of mammals: modern problems
- Use of the "Mammals of Russia" database to increase the effectiveness of fauna studies
- Problems of mammal species identification in the Russian fauna
Further information about the conference is available from
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
The Societas Europaea Mammalogica was set up to support the first edition of the Atlas by providing a formal organisation and a bank account. This was registered in Paris under French law. Since that time, the SEM has ceased to exist officially, so for the second edition of the Atlas, we have set up a new organisation to provide similar facilities. The European Mammal Foundation is registered as a charitable Foundation (Stichting) in the Netherlands and has the objective of publishing and keeping up to date an atlas and related products with all information about European mammals. It can thus be used to help with fund-raising for the Atlas project. At present, the Foundation has 3 officers:
- Chair: Tony Mitchell-Jones
- Vice-chair: Johan Thissen
- Treasurer: Svetlana Miteva
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
Photo: G Amori
47 members of the Delivery Group, from 30 European countries, gathered in Prague on the weekend of 20-22 April for the first full meeting of the project group. Delegates listened to a variety of presentations, including case studies of atlas work across Europe, data sharing, setting standards for data collection and management, progress reports from each country and information about the data requirements for the atlas.
An impressive amount of work is already under way and there was great enthusiasm for this ambitious project, which has already led to the setting up of several national atlas projects.
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones
Wild Mammals of Morocco: Populations, Distribution and Ecology, edited by S. Aulagnier, F. Cuzin and M. Thévenot, has recently been published by the Société Française pour l'Etude et la Protection des Mammifères. The work includes distribution maps for all species recorded in the second half of the 20th century, as well as data on their taxonomy, vernacular names and ecology. More details about the publication and where to buy it can be found here.
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- Written by: Tony Mitchell-Jones