The European Mammal Foundation

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 4 officers:

• Chair: Tony Mitchell-Jones
• Vice-chair: Johan Thissen
• Secretary: Laurent Schley
• Treasurer: Svetlana Miteva

 

 

EMMA2 - 1 year on

A year after our initial meeting in Rome the project has made good progress and is on-track with the timetable we proposed there.

The main achievements this year have been:

• We have agreed the exact boundaries of the area to be mapped and prepared maps of the CGRS cells for each country (available here).

• We have agreed a full species list for the area, annotated with cases where taxonomic decisions may need to be made as the project moves forward. We recognise that changes may need to be considered during the lifetime of the project and have set up a system for doing this,

• We have appointed coordinators for almost every country involved in the project, as well as a small number of topic coordinators to help with the work (available here).

 For 2018, we are planning an opportunity for all our coordinators to get together and discuss topics relating to the collection, management and storage of data for the atlas. We will also be opening discussions with a publisher to begin the process of planning the publication and we will also start looking for authors to prepare the species accounts.

 

 

EMMA2 - Meeting in Prague

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.

 

 

 

Atlas des mammifères sauvages de France: Mammifères marins

The first volume of the new Atlas des mammifères sauvages de France has recently been published by the Natural History Museum in Paris. Coordinated by Audrey Savouré-Soubelet, Stéphane Aulagnier, Patrick Haffner, François Moutou, Olivier Van Canneyt, Jean‑Benoît Charrassin & Vincent Ridoux, the 480 page book covers marine mammals in both themetropolitan and overseas territories of France.

With the second largest exclusive economic zone in the world (in excess of 11 000 000 km2), the metropolitan and overseas territories of France are host to 71 species of marine mammals. This book – the first of a series focusing on the wild mammals of France – marks a considerable progress in knowledge on the distribution of the 16 Carnivora, 53 Cetartiodactyla and 2 Sirenia found in the French waters. It synthesizes over 90 000 observation data collected since 2000 by some thirty agencies.This volume is organized in two complementary main sections. In the first, species monographs provide scientists and naturalists with up-todate information on the distribution, biology, population dynamics, threats and ongoing monitoring and management actions for each species. In the second part, in order to meet the needs of managers and administrative authorities, geographical monographs offer a summarized presentation of nine oceanic regions and the species found in each of them: North-East Atlantic (metropolitan France), North-West Atlantic (Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon), Tropical Atlantic (French Antilles), Equatorial Atlantic (French Guiana), Tropical Indian Ocean (La Réunion, Mayotte and the Scattered Islands), Subtropical Indian Ocean and the north of the Southern Ocean (Saint-Paul, Amsterdam and the French subantarctic islands), Southern Ocean (Terre Adélie), South Pacific (New Caledonia, Wallis-and-Futuna, French Polynesia) and North Pacific (Clipperton). The book also includes a summary of the different legal tools in place for the protection and conservation of these species.

An order form for the book can be downloaded here.