Seen a mole, hedgehog or garden spider?

Sunday 02 September 2018

Whether a mole, hedgehog or spider - if you've spotted one of these creeping critters in your garden or elsewhere, then there's a new place for you to log on and log it.

The Jersey Biodiversity Centre (JBC) has launched its new website and is inviting islanders to use one of its new features that allows specialist organisations and members of the public to record wildlife sightings around the island.

Records on moles, hedgehogs and garden spiders are low and in particular demand, but the centre are keen to hear from islanders about anything and everything. 

The new website is built on the Indicia platform and allows data to be submitted ‘casually’ by completing the species information and then clicking on a map of Jersey to record the location of the sighting.

Islanders will also have the ability to register on the website to be able to keep a track of all the data they have added to the system.

The phone app iRecord can be used to record data whilst in the field or at sea. All this data will be sent directly to the JBC for inclusion in the dataset. The data sent by islanders will be verified by experts and stored securely.

The data collected might then be used to guide Environment policy and to inform everyone the biodiversity within a particular area which may be under threat of development.

The JBC received substantial support from the Gerard Le Claire Environmental Trust to develop the new website. Mr Le Claire, a locally born environmentalist and journalist who became Director of the States of Jersey's Environmental Services Unit in 1996, was a firm advocate of the importance of high quality biological data as the foundation to successful decision making in the environment he loved. The trustees said they were "delighted to support the excellent and vital work of the Jersey Biodiversity Centre."

Dr Amy Louise Hall, the Manager of the JBC, explained: "We hope that the new data entry site and phone app will be used by all members of society to record biological data within Jersey. These tools will give us the ability to use citizen science to help record wildlife sightings. This data can then be used by policy makers to safeguard these natural assets for future generations.

"We will have targeted campaigns in the near future and will produce ID guides for what we are looking for.  We are keen to get sightings of all wildlife as it is often the more common species that are under-recorded in biodiversity datasets. We'd be delighted for people to log sightings of things as varied as rabbits, squirrels, woodpeckers, garden birds, toads and butterfly species."

Pictured: The JBC is keen to receive reports of any wildlife on the island, from the more common species to the Daubenton Bat. (Amy Hall)

The Jersey Biodiversity Centre is a charitable organisation, is hosted by the Societe Jersiaise. It currently receives annual grant funding from the States' Countryside Enhancement Scheme (CES) to help carry out its core function as a public repository of essential data relating to Jersey’s flora and fauna.

Willie Peggie, Director, Natural Environment, said: "The continued development of an independent biological records centre for Jersey underpins informed decision making in development and change. Natural Environment is keen to support the Jersey Biodiversity Centre through the Countryside Enhancement Scheme and to help where we can; it is doing fantastic work.

"To realistically protect our countryside and wildlife for its own benefit and for the inhabitants of Jersey we need to know what we have and where it is; and for that information to be easily available from a reliable and impartial source. We see the Jersey Biodiversity Centre as a one-stop shop for ecological data and information whether you’re a student, an ecological professional, a developer or an interested hobbyist."

Enter your wildlife sightings by clicking here.