Researchers at the University of Brighton set out to study urban wildlife in Britain, aiming:
- to investigate the impact of urban landscape structure and human activities, such as feeding, deterrents, encouragements, pets, garden features and garden management on urban fox, badger and hedgehog presence, activity and density.
- to understand what drivers affect public attitudes, with the purpose of developing information, or informing mitigation approaches to help reduce human-wildlife conflict and promote human wildlife coexistence.
- to determine the national distribution of urban mammals and what factors affect presence, abundance and density in different cities at different spatial scales.
- to determine space use by wildlife and domestic mammals in urban areas to determine to what degree the species interact and what factors predict such interactions.
- to determine to impact of urban mammals (foxes and hedgehogs) rehabilitation on the behaviour and survival of urban mammals.
A set of projects saw University of Brighton researchers together with their students of PhD ecology and conservation collaborate with influential groups around Britain.
Senior researchers at the university, Professor Dawn Scott, Dr Bryony Tolhurst, Dr Maureen Berg and Dr Niall Burnside worked with MRes and PhD students in ecology, conservation and urban management, Kate Davies, Christina Kimbrough, Naomi Charman, Heather Hughes, Heidi Karlsson, Rashad New, Nicholas Abery, Rowenna Baker and Louise Mandry. Their academic partners included Dr Philip Baker (University of Reading), Dr Richard Yarnell (Nottingham Trent University), Dr Aileen Mills (University of Newcastle), Dr Graham Smith (Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency), Dr Alienor Chauvet (Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency).
Outreach to the general public came through Earthwatch Institute, Windfall Films, the BBC, Channel 4 and the RSPCA.
From this they were able to continue the developing knowledge of how the urban wildlife in Britain lives alongside us.
- Multi-species data at different spatial scales allow us to determine what landscape features affect the presence, abundance and distribution of urban mammals. This information for example can inform who best to manage urban landscapes for the benefit of species of conservation concern or manage areas to reduce human-wildlife conflict.
- Spatial data is informing us of how different species utilise the urban landscapes and what features in the landscape influence their behaviour.
- Our data on attitude shows how negative incidents can affect attitude. We also have information of the occurrence of different types of conflict so can identify major issues and come up with solutions to reduce incidents and conflict overall.
- National distribution data allows us to determine the current status of the geographical distribution of urban mammals and how that has changed over time. Our data has shown that more cities have foxes than compared to 30 years ago.
- A comparison of the behaviour of released rehabilitated foxes compared to wild foxes will help us to understand the welfare implications of rehabilitation when release back into their social group.
- Hedgehog overwinter survival will inform guidelines of when to over-wintering hedgehogs in captivity and the best course of action to maximise over-winter survival.
Urbanisation is detrimental to many wild mammal carnivores, yet some thrive in towns and cities. This can result in conflict with humans arising from nuisance factors and zoonotic/veterinary disease transmission, with negative impacts on wild carnivore welfare and human wellbeing.
Through a series of projects, Dr Bryony Tolhurst and colleagues focused on determining the distribution and abundance of wild carnivores in urban environments expanding the information we have on urban carnivore distributions and learning how humans affect wild animal welfare in cities.
Prior to the efforts of researchers and television programmes such as Springwatch, urban ecology in mainstream media had focused on nuisance or disease risk factors. There was a real challenge to build data given the fragmented matrix of privately- and publicly-owned land present in towns and cities.
University of Brighton researchers confronted this challenge in one instance by developing a citizen science project linked to broadcasts on Channel 4, Foxes Live: Wild in the City. These included a call for the public to submit sightings of urban foxes to a website. Together with other surveys, the data was mapped digitally to determine fox abundance in eight UK cities, with the method also adapted to other species like Eurasian badgers.
Researchers also examined the impact of taking sick or injured wildlife into rehabilitation centres. Working with the RSPCA, the University of Brighton team researched the impact of rehabilitation on urban foxes and on hedgehogs during winter. Findings showed that temporary captivity of urban foxes can cause behavioural disruption and territory displacement and, in turn, affect survival and that over-winter survival of hedgehogs is not improved by rehabilitation.
The efforts of our researchers have led not only to changes in the contingency planning against potential spread of rabies, but, working with the RSPCA, have also influenced the patterns of urban wild animal treatment and release in winter.