One of the United Kingdom's rarest and most adorable mammals — the hazel dormouse — was captured on a trail camera foraging for food at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire, a sign that conservation efforts are paying off.
According to the Wiltshire Times, the country's dormice population has plummeted by 52% in the last 15 years because of habitat loss, changes in land management practices, and more unpredictable weather.
But conservationists at Longleat have worked hard to preserve habitat for the dormice, ensuring woodlands can mature before thinning them out to keep forests healthy. Removing some of the trees on rotation allows more sunlight to reach the forest floor, promoting biodiversity and a better habitat for wildlife.
"By managing the woodland this way, we create a mixture of different age trees, from saplings to ancient trees. This is the type of habitat that is ideal for dormice," Dr. Tom Lewis, Longleat's conservation and research manager, told the Times.
Because the tiny creatures spend most of their time sleeping and only venture out at night for food, spotting them is incredibly rare. So when the trail camera at Longleat captured one, conservationists were happy to know their forestry practices were helping dormice thrive.
"We were so pleased to capture images of them using camera traps and then to be able to see their footprints. We conducted a footprint tunnel survey to determine whether we have dormice and how much woodland they use," Dr. Lewis added.
Remarkably, the team discovered dormice in nearly half of the sites it checked in the woodlands at Longleat, proving it's the perfect environment for the animals. While they're not currently classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, they're considered vulnerable in the UK.
That's why some conservation charities, such as the People's Trust for Endangered Species, have called for the reclassification of dormice as endangered, which would make them a higher priority species and could lead to more aggressive conservation efforts.
According to the BBC, there are ongoing efforts throughout the UK to help the species rebound, with conservation groups releasing more than 1,000 hazel dormice into 25 woodland habitats since 1993.
Trail cameras can be a powerful tool to aid reintroduction initiatives, as experts can regularly monitor the species' progress and gauge population health. By managing our ecosystems wisely, we can ensure a bright future for both animals and humans, as our survival depends on a healthy environment as well.
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Definitely 👍 "Dormice continue to face an uncertain future as our climate and countryside change. Declines on this scale cannot be fixed overnight, so it will take time before we see if our conservation work is effective," Ian White, dormouse and training officer at PTES, said in a press release.
"We know what works for dormice, but we urgently need increased funding to implement this nationally. Hope is not lost as reintroductions, monitoring, research and landscape projects offer a lifeline — and some populations appear to be thriving — but we need to do everything we can on a much bigger scale to prevent the worst case from happening."
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