Hazel dormice should be classified as ‘Endangered’, according to new research - People's Trust for Endangered Species / Unversity of Exeter
New research has highlighted issues about how the conservation status of different species is classified, and suggests the focus should be on restoring species now rather than waiting for them to become threatened with extinction before acting.
The research from the University of Exeter also highlights that Britain’s native hazel dormice are in chronic decline, need urgent conservation action, and should in fact be classified as ‘Endangered’, not ‘Vulnerable’.
Conservation status is important - it determines how much attention, funding and urgency is given to protecting a particular animal or plant. Strict international criteria currently guide how conservationists classify how threatened a species is, but the new report shows that the chronic decline in hazel dormouse numbers doesn’t fit with their current classification status, due to the current guidelines for classification.
PhD student Ellie Scopes and colleagues have also found that a species can experience a dramatic decline without being classified as Endangered - meaning hazel dormice are more of a conservation concern than is currently perceived.
The report was published on Friday in Ecological Solutions and Evidence.Using data from the National Dormouse Monitoring Programme (NDMP), which is managed by wildlife charity People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES), Ellie and colleagues found that the information used to best measure the risk of extinction is dependent on shifting baselines – a concept that changing the baseline, which often becomes more recent as time progresses, alters the perception of the overall population decline.
Read this article from PTES featuring a range of their Citizen Science projects.
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Posted On: 13/02/2023