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Returning Dormice to Woods in Warwickshire Ruth Moffat & Debbie Wright Report on Their Status in the County, and an Exciting Reintroduction Project

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Returning Dormice to Woods in Warwickshire Ruth Moffat & Debbie Wright Report on Their Status in the County, and an Exciting Reintroduction Project people’s trust for endangered The Dormouse species WINTER Monitor 2017/ 2018 Returning dormice to woods in Warwickshire Ruth Moffat & Debbie Wright report on their status in the county, and an exciting reintroduction project. Investigating diseases From black to gold Do Buy your 2018 dormouse Inez Januszczak explains black hazel dormice have calendar today. Fantastic how she and her team black offspring? Can black photos of the four dormouse check the health of hazel dormice moult their black species found on the dormice before they are and become gold? Gerhard continent: hazel, forest, released into the wild. Augustin investigates. garden and glis. 03 South Brent Wood Fair, Devon Investigating health and diseases 04 in hazel dormice, at Zoological Society of London Food for thought: my views from 06 the woods of Dartmoor 15 07 Securing a future for 08 Warwickshire’s dormice International Dormouse 11 Conference, Belgium In this issue From black to gold: breeding black 12 dormice 04 13 13 2018 dormouse calendar 14 The much anticipated return of dormice to Warwickshire 17 Faulty dormouse nest boxes create death traps, Germany 18 A season of monitoring dormice in nest tubes, Essex Welcome Over the past couple of years we have commissioned and funded several projects Editorial team: Nida Al-Fulaij, Susan Sharafi, Zoe Roden looking at different aspects of hazel dormouse Illustrations: Hayley Cove ecology and conservation. We hope to better Cover image: Kerstin Hinze understand how and where they hibernate. The opinions expressed in this Investigations have been underway, looking magazine are not necessarily those of into what types of woodland they do best in, People’s Trust for Endangered Species. and how mangement impacts on their Contact us numbers. And results from footprint tracking trials are ready to be analsyed. This year we The Dormouse Monitor should be in a position to share the results of some of these studies with you, and really begin to 3 Cloisters House understand why dormice are still declining and what we can do to halt that decline. With this 8 Battersea Park Road London SW8 4BG knowledge and your help, we hope to begin to reverse the fortunes of hazel dormice in the UK. www.ptes.org [email protected] people’s We hope you enjoy reading all the articles here - do feed back and let us know! 020 7498 4533 trust for facebook.com/ptes.org endangered Nida Al-Fulaij & Susan Sharafi twitter.com/PTES species 2 The Dormouse Monitor South Brent Wood Fair Tom Maddock reports on the Sustainable South Brent wood fair 2017, where he promoted the work of the Hurrells and PTES in conserving hazel dormice. South Brent is a thriving Devon village on Trees, which has an office and tree nursery chance to grab a coffee in the cafe. the southern edge of Dartmoor, between in Brent, also had a stand. They plant native H.G. Hurrell, MBE, was a founder Exeter and Plymouth. Sustainable South trees on Dartmoor and in the South Hams member of both DWT and the Woodland Brent (SSB) was set up in 2006 by a group of using seed collected locally. Since 2001 their Trust. Without his pioneering efforts our enthusiastic locals, all actively involved in volunteers have planted 60,000 trees in 66 knowledge of hazel dormice would be woodwork, wood-related skills, crafts, local hectares. That’s the equivalent of 110 considerably limited in comparison to our produce, stories, traditions and the rich football pitches. A fantastic amount of knowledge today. His legacy was very much heritage of trees, woods and hedges. This habitat for dormice. felt at the wood fair. Without Hurrell it year the Wood Group of SSB, co-ordinated My display told a very local story of the would have been a very different day. by Robin Toogood, organised a wood fair, at Hurrell family’s pioneering work with the local village hall. dormice around their home, within sight of I only heard about the fair three weeks this very hall, in the 1960s. This included before it was due to occur. I applied for a H.G. Hurrell’s discovery of the diagnostic space, but they were full. There were 30 appearance of a dormouse-opened hazel stalls, including the Forestry Commission, nut; his daughter Elaine’s use of this Devon Rural Skills Trust and Dartmoor discovery to investigate the UK distribution National Park Authority, and a full of dormice, and their early design for a programme of events, including walks, talks, dormouse nest box. Elaine subsequently storytelling and music throughout the day. wrote two further monographs about the The best offer I had was to share space with hazel dormouse. Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT). One of my nest I gave out numerous dormouse-opened box sites is at the DWT Reserve, Andrew’s nuts and explained the current work of Wood, downstream from Brent, so I was in NDMP. The State of Britain’s Dormice 2016, with a chance. I arrived early. One stall away produced by PTES, proved invaluable. And from the DWT stand, next to local company several people took photographs of the One joiner, One Engineer, was the Woodland PTES display material. People had come Trust table. Their display had not arrived, so from all over the county, and beyond. It was I acquired their table - a prime site in the non-stop from 10am until close at 5pm. I was main hall. Thank you Woodland Trust! Moor grateful to Celia Ralph of Brent DWT for a Tom Maddock Tom The Dormouse Monitor 3 Investigating diseases in hazel dormice Inez Januszczak, Pathology Technician for the Disease Risk Analysis and Health Surveillance programme (DRAHS ), Zoological Society of London, details how post mortems help us learn more about the health of dormice. Zoological Society London Society Zoological For over 20 years, PTES has led reintroductions are being used to bolster Trusts. Over time, the aim is for a self- reintroductions of hazel dormice - an populations. The Zoological Society of sustaining free-living wild population, incredibly charismatic species that some London and Natural England have been which longer requires human intervention. say represents the British countryside. It has supporting those reintroductions through The process of a dormouse been in decline probably in part due to the health and disease monitoring for the last reintroduction includes breeding them in fragmentation of woodland and the 18 years, with assistance from Paignton Zoo captive collections after which they are decrease in hedgerows, thus and Environmental Park and the Wildlife quarantined for up to three months. This quarantine period is crucial to ensure the dormice are as healthy as possible at the time of release and to try to ensure that they can be released into the wild free from any non-native diseases that could impact wild populations. During quarantine, the dormice are microchipped which means any dormouse found after the release can be identified. Similarly, if non-chipped dormice are found, this indicates that the reintroduced dormouse have produced viable offspring. However, where there is life there is also death – and on occasion dead dormice are found. But this presents a unique opportunity to investigate the threats to dormice present today. The Disease Risk Analysis and Health Surveillance programme (DRAHS), based at the Zoological Society of London, and a partnership with Natural England, with support from PTES, carries out post- mortem examinations of dormouse carcasses found at reintroduction sites and also elsewhere in the countryside – a kind of ‘CSI’ for rodents. DRAHS works with a network of volunteers across the country that submit dormouse carcasses for post mortem examination – and they are accepted in any condition, whether they are freshly dead or mummified. We can collect valuable information on fur quality, bone and skeletal health even from mummified carcasses which increases our understanding of their health. There are numerous reasons why a dormouse could die in the wild – from bacterial sepsis to acute respiratory failure. At DRAHS the aim is to have a record glass slides of organs can be taken to look of diseases found, which is achieved at any microorganisms that could be through a detailed post mortem present – organisms that are too small to examination protocol involving not only be spotted with the naked eye. Pieces of DRAHS is always interested in receiving external examinations but inspection and organs can also be sent for histological dormouse carcasses so that we can sampling of organs (to search for viral, analysis – where the tissue can be examined continue our monitoring work. Please bacterial, fungal, and other parasites) and more closely. This can give us a better idea contact [email protected] if you would like to London of Society Zoological measuring of body parts. of the state of the organs at the time of know more about submitting dormouse These investigations increase our death, and can further determine whether carcasses to be examined post mortem. understanding of the threats to dormice, and there were any signs of disease. when assessed in the context of the Parasites such as nematodes might be population dynamics in the woodland of found within the internal organs, especially concern, can give us a potentially valuable insight into the viability of both reintroduced and other populations of dormice. These The first step of a post- insights can then aid future reintroductions, as well as acting as a map of potential mortem is to look closely diseases which can point to improving for any abnormalities on reintroduction methods in the future. It’s important to approach post-mortem the external body examination in a methodical way using the same sequence of inspections to ensure nothing is missed.
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