Dormouse footprint tunnels at Poles Coppice Nature Reserve in Shrewsbury
Shropshire Council country rangers are delighted to have a new volunteer project Dormouse Footprint Tunnels, a wildlife project funded by Tesco’s Little bags of Help!
A Hazel Dormouse: photo by Sam Devine-Turner.
The People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) set up the National Dormouse Monitoring Programme in order to record population trends of the hazel dormouse across the country. Shropshire Dormouse Group (an informal branch of the Shropshire Mammal Group) carry out monthly nest box checks under license on registered sites across Shropshire, and supply this information to PTES in line with this scheme. This new project is a collaboration of the Shropshire Dormouse Group and Shropshire Council, coming together to protect and record Dormice.
Dormouse footprint tunnels are a new upcoming technique for monitoring Dormice. A new practice, showing good indictors of Dormice but creating minimal disturbance to the protected species when collecting species records. Penny Wellman, assistant country park support officer and placement student at Shropshire Council, is trialling whether footprint tunnels are more affective than recording Dormice using nest boxes.
Learn about Dormice, how to make a footprint tunnel and help post them around Poles Coppice Nature Reserve in Shrewsbury. You can use your new-found knowledge to make one at home!
Volunteer for this new project on Shropshire Council’s country site! Tel: 07458 087305, email: penny.wellman@shropshire.gov.uk.
The event will take place on Wednesday 1 August 2018 at 10am. We will meet at the car park at grid reference SJ 39277 04819, nearest postcode SY5 0YL. This is only a small car park, so if it is full you can park at the main car park at grid reference SJ 38554 04192, nearest postcode SY5 0TS and walk across the site to the meeting point.
