Highs and lows for British mammals

With several high profile species in decline in Britain and last year's global failure to meet biodiversity targets, you could expect conservationists to have a pessimistic view for the future.
But according to David Macdonald, Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Oxford who has co-authored the report for the last 10 years, hope is not lost.

"If one could roll back and look at what in 2001 we might have expected the picture to be, I think it's amazingly positive," he says.

Prof Macdonald cites the growth of "citizen science" as an enormous boost to mammal monitoring. Public insight into a perceived decline in hedgehog numbers prompted scientific investigation that led to the species' inclusion on the government's Biodiversity Action Plan.

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