Europe's struggling mammals

One year ago, JJ1 was Europe's most famous mammal. The male brown bear, also known by the more amiable name of 'Bruno', had wandered into Southern Germany from the Trentino in Italy. The appearance of this charismatic animal in a region where the last bear had been seen and killed 170 years ago seemed to fit a trend. Over the past ten years, wolves, elks, beavers and lynxes have been highly publicised reappearances in Germany, in part by themselves and in part through conservation efforts. So, on the face of it, mammals seem to be doing quite well in Central Europe. However, a recent report, the European Mammal Assessment, published by the IUCN and the European Union, suggests that such optimism is not exactly warranted. In fact, across the whole range of mammal species in Europe, the picture looks rather gloomy. Of the 260 European mammal species, 15 per cent are threatened and another 9 per cent close to being threatened — in particular carnivores, ungulates, bats and lagomorphs. This is similar to the situation for birds, the only other group for which such comprehensive data are available. The most critically endangered species are the Iberian lynx — the world's most endangered cat — and the Bavarian pine While conservation successes and their sometime problems often make the news, the overall picture for European mammals is bleaker. Florian Maderspacher reports. Europe's struggling mammals vole — a species already believed extinct until a single population was rediscovered in 2004. More than a quarter of species are reported to be declining in numbers, while only about one in 12 is on the increase; many of these — such as the European bison — due to conservation efforts. For a third of the European mammals the population trends are not known, so the overall situation might actually be worse. Clearly, much more information is needed, even for such a seemingly well-studied group of animals. Compared with other continents, Europe scores highly in the amount of threatened mammals — not surprising giving its dense population and intensive land use. On the other hand, due to its small size, Europe has a fairly low percentage of endemic mammals, only about 25 per cent, most of them small species. Even High profile: The very rare Iberian Lynx is subject to special conservation measures but many other European mammals are in little-noticed decline.