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Help researchers to monitor wildlife using habitat surrounding London’s railways, and contribute to Network Rail’s biodiversity action plan to protect lineside biodiversity.
Railway sites support a rich mosaic of different habitat types and may serve as important wildlife corridors. As one of the UK’s largest landowners, Network Rail has committed to halting the loss of wildlife on its land and promoting healthy wildlife populations. Network Rail and ZSL have partnered on this project to understand how railway lines affect biodiversity across Network Rail’s Southern region.
To monitor the wildlife species in these landscapes and gain a better understanding on how to protect them, we used a combination of remote camera traps and acoustic recorders. Camera traps were placed at varying distances from railway lines, including green spaces adjacent to the line. This was to help us understand which species use railway habitats as movement corridors, and discover which species are found in green spaces surrounding the railway lines.
Results will be included in Network Rail’s State of Nature report, and the findings will help ZSL plan future work to support Network Rail’s biodiversity action plan to protect, manage and enhance habitats and species populations throughout its estate.
What can you expect to see? Help us search for mammal species including hedgehogs, foxes, squirrels, and rodents, as well as a variety of birds. For this study we were also particularly interested in testing methods for monitoring dormice and small mammals. This means you will see some exciting photos from a dormouse reintroduction in Derbyshire with People’s Trust for Endangered Species, and images from ‘Mostela’ boxes specifically designed for capturing images of small mammals.
