Mammals are everywhere in Europe. Most people cherish an encounter with a wild mammal and store this exciting moment in their memory or notebook. But, there is another way to store your sighting and at the same time contribute to better knowledge about the distribution of mammals in Europe: citizen science portals. In many countries not only scientists collect data, but also citizens and non-scientific organisations collect data. Actually, without the sightings collected by non-scientists, we wouldn’t be able to get countrywide, not to say European-wide overviews of the distributions of mammals. In several countries, the monitoring of population changes almost solely depends on the commitment of volunteers visiting the same places or walking the same transects year after year. By including your sightings in one of the portals you deliver an important contribution to the conservation and study of mammals in Europe. Your data will be used for research, advocacy, habitat management, and education.
Some examples of portals for uploading mammal observations:
- Europe: Observation International
- Europe: MammalWeb, MammalNet, and Agouti (only for camera trap images)
- Austria: Naturbeobachtung and Roadkill (only for road casualties)
- Belgium: Waarnemingen.be (Flanders) and Encodage DEMNA-OFFH (Wallonia)
- Bulgaria: SmartBirds (not only for birds)
- Croatia: Fauna.hr
- Czech Republic: Biolib
- Denmark: DOFbasen
- Estonia: Loodusvaatluste andmebaas
- France: Faune-France. Regional portals: Faune Aquitaine, Faune Limousin
- Germany: Tierfund-Kataster (only for dead animals)
- Greece: Paratiro (collects data on incidents of sick and injured wild animals)
- Hungary: MME Nature Observation Database (experimental)
- Ireland: Ireland’s Citizen Science Portal
- Italy: CSMON-Life, Ornitho.it (not only for birds!) or iNaturalist
- Latvia: Dabas Dati
- The Netherlands: Telmee and Waarneming.nl
- Nordrhein Westfalen: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe
- Norway: ArtsObservasjoner
- Romania: Open Mammals Maps
- Spain: Observado Spain
- Sweden: ArtPortalen, SLU Artdatabanken
- Switzerland: Webfauna
- United Kingdom: iRecord and Mammal tracker (Northern Ireland: CEDaR Online Recording)
- Ukraine: iNaturalist and Ukrainian Biodiversity Information Network
There are also mobile apps for Android and iPhone available, like:
- Observation International App for Android (Obsmap) and for iPhone (iObs)
- Mammal Mapper (The Mammal Society – UK)
- SmartBirds Pro (in Bulgarian)
- NaturaList (en français)
- Webfauna (en français)
- Tierfund-Kataster App for Android and for iPhone.
- Roadkill (Austria) App for Android and for iPhone.