{"id":515646,"date":"2026-04-06T10:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515646\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T10:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T10:10:07","slug":"citizen-science-project-to-track-small-mammals-in-guernsey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515646\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizen science project to track small mammals in Guernsey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Islanders can use footprint tunnels to detect animals without disturbing them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The tunnels are made from cardboard, paper and an ink mixture, with food placed inside to attract wildlife.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Animals that pass through leave footprints on the paper, which can then be identified and shared with experts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Charlotte Burgoine, an ecologist at the Nature Commission, said: &#8220;If everybody takes part, it gives us a much clearer understanding of what small mammals we&#8217;ve got in Guernsey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a great opportunity for families and even kids to get involved in collecting crucial data for Guernsey. The approach is cheap, accessible and simple, making it easy for anyone to take part and contribute.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Burgoine said the data was important because small mammals were a key part of the food chain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A lot of our birds of prey and owls rely on them, so if they have a bad year, that has a knock-on effect,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Burgoine said results could vary depending on weather and location and that animals would not always appear overnight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s the nature of wildlife, they don&#8217;t always play ball, but you can try again in a different spot or another night.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Islanders can use footprint tunnels to detect animals without disturbing them. The tunnels are made from cardboard, paper&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-515646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}