Worcestershire Record No. 21 April 2007 p. 17

WORCESTERSHIRE MAMMAL ATLAS

Harry Green

As we stated in the last Worcestershire Record, 2006 is the last year from which we are collecting records for this Atlas Project. During 2006 records have continued to come in to the WBRC and we are particularly pleased with an increase in the numbers of bat records and renewed activity through the Worcestershire Bat Group and others. Another excellent step forward has been great progress in entering mammal records on to the WBRC database. There is now virtually no backlog for the first time for years and we are especially grateful to John Partridge, and to Simon Wood and assistants at WBRC for their great efforts.

WE STILL NEED RECORDS! This is a special appeal to those people who we know have records buried away to sort them out and send them to the WBRC so we can make this Atlas a really meaningful record of the state of Worcestershire’s Mammals in the ten years around the Millennium. We want any records – we are concerned that we may be short on species which occur virtually everywhere such as rats, rabbits and moles! We are also especially keen to receive records of those species which appear to be changing numbers and distribution – otters, polecat, and all the deer are obvious examples. Please, please send in records. The Atlas will probably be based on monads, the 1x1 km squares of the national grid, so even if you only know of monads with specific mammals in them during the last ten years we want the records! A basis of one record, one place or 1 km square, in one year is very useful. Perhaps you can study a tract of countryside on a map and conclude that you definitely know there are rabbits in a list of monads that will be a useful record. Please send your lists to Simon Wood at the WBRC (records@wbrc.org.uk).

The Worcestershire Recorders Committee has asked Geoff Trevis , Simon Wood and Harry Green to take an initial look at the data and suggest the next steps forward to publishing the Atlas as soon as possible