Living with Mammals survey
People's Trust for Endangered Species
Description
Records of mammal sightings and field signs at sites in the built environment (predominantly urban and suburban gardens but including areas of common ground, recreational spaces, cemeteries and other green spaces) during April, May and June in each year.
Participants record for a minimum of eight weeks in a thirteen week period (through April, May and June). The observation time each week is variable (from several minutes to several hours) and sightings occurred at any time within the week period.
Geographic Description
Records are collected from sites in the built environment (defined as within 200m of a building) anywhere in Great Britain. The distribution of records mirrors the distribution of returns (i.e. sites are not randomly selected), which in turn matches the distribution of built land. The majority of survey sites (and hence records) are located by a post code from which a six-figure grid reference is derived.
Purpose
The dataset is used to assess population trends for individual species.
Data quality
Records are submitted voluntarily by members of the public with a wide range of expertise. Sightings are not verified and species may be misidentified (with a specific risk: high in the case of mouse or vole species, and low in the case of badger or hedgehog, for example). For medium-sized species, confidence in identification is medium to high, apart from polecat sightings which could be ferret or polecat/ferret hybrid. Taxonomic coverage is biased towards more visible species (larger and/or diurnal ones). Small differences in survey effort at night or around dawn/dusk may strongly affect counts.
Methods
The data are from a public-participation survey: data are collected by volunteers at sites (chosen by participants) within 200m of a building or wholly within a town or city (e.g. large civic parks). Nature reserves and urban farms are excluded. Direct observations of mammals or of field signs are recorded and counts of the maximum number of individuals seen together at one time in a particular week given. Records are submitted online by the participants or sent in on paper forms and added by the survey coordinator.
Citation
People's Trust for Endangered Species ([Insert download year]). Living with Mammals survey. Occurrence dataset on the NBN Atlas
Rights
CC-BY-NC
Information withheld
Further details and reports from the survey can be found at www.ptes.org/lwm
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Digitised records
Looking up... the number of records that can be accessed through the NBN Atlas. This resource was last checked for updated data on 18 Sep 2023. The most recent data was published on 18 Sep 2023.
Click to view records for the Living with Mammals survey resource.