'Golden Great Nut Hunt' to help endangered hazel dormouse

10/22/2009

A hazel dormouse rests in its nest Copyright PTES/Kate Merry

It’s autumn in England, which is a great time of year to find evidence of the endangered hazel dormouse’s activity… hazelnuts left behind. The elusive creatures chew distinctive holes in the hazelnut shells and scoop out the contents. Finding the chewed hazelnuts is a telltale sign that a dormouse is in the neighborhood, and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species is using the signs left behind to help collect data for scientists.

The rare hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) - also called the common dormouse - is a very sleepy mouse! They sleep most of their lives, hibernating in the undergrowth on the ground, but live up to five years – a long time for a rodent. They have a honey-colored coat, a long furry tail and large eyes that make them very endearing. England’s only native dormouse species, the woodland critter once roamed all of England and Wales but their habitat has been reduced because of changes in managing woodlands, farming, and the elimination of hedgerows. Hedgerows formerly connected patches of forest throughout the English countryside but many have been eliminated or mismanaged. Without them, the dormice end up with highly fragmented habitat and no way to move between patches. The species now lives only in parts of southern England and Wales, with a few scattered populations further north.

"The People’s Trust for Endangered Species launched the Golden Great Nut Hunt this autumn to build on the success of the two previous Great Nut Hunts of 1993 and 2001 and to get people outdoors, looking not just at the colorful changing leaves but down on the ground for half-bitten nuts," says Hannah Stockwell of the PTES. The Trust also coordinates the National Dormice Monitoring Program, which began 21 years ago.  They collaborate with scientists at the Royal Holloway University and Natural England to analyze the data collected at over 200 places around England. Volunteers record information about the number of nuts they see along with the location, and this helps the trust monitor the number and density of the animals.

For the 21st anniversary the Trust came up with the slogan, “go nuts for dormice” and have activities planned throughout the fall. To encourage even more people to get outside looking for hazelnuts, the Trust has hidden hid 21 special hazelnut replicas throughout the English and Wales countryside, 20 silver and one gold-plated one. People can apply for funds to set up nest boxes, and the Trust also advises landowners on setting up hedgerows, and managing small woodlands to help the dormice make a recovery.

According to a report published in December 2008 by the Trust, The State of British Mammals, a third of British mammals are Priority Species of Conservation Concern, some of which are very vulnerable to extinction, mostly due to climate change and habitat loss.

Comments

[Christine Smith]

What a fantastic idea the Golden Great Nut Hunt is! It is amazing what you can achieve when people from all over the country take part in something like this. Plus it is a fun way to get the kids out the house and enjoying the outdoors. My two will be on the case at the weekend and can't wait to see what they might find.... possibly a golden nut!!