Mammals Trust UK Warns of Decline in Some Animal Species

Mammals Trust UK just issued a report stating that some animals, such as the hedgehog are facing serious problems due to a variety of factors.

An indication of the stress on British mammal populations came earlier this year when nine new species were added to Britain's wildlife conservation blueprint, the UK Biodiversity Action Plan. The hedgehog, the mountain hare, the pine marten, the polecat, the Scottish wildcat, the harvest mouse, the noctule and brown long-eared bats, and the harbour seal (formerly the common seal), were added to the list of British mammals already requiring conservation action, such as the red squirrel and the water vole.

The lengthening list of environmental problems is increasingly hitting mammals, say the report's authors, David Macdonald and Dawn Burnham from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford. "The roll call of environmental topicality seems more strident in 2007 than ever before, and wild mammals are touched by every topic on the list," they say.

Here is a link to Mammals Trust UK. You can supposedly view the report online, but when I clicked on the link to the pdf file, it said it wasn't there.

Photo by Yoppy