The Associatione Faunisti Veneti, the Natural History Museum of Venice Giancarlo Ligabue and the Treviso Society of Natural Sciences promote the new project Mammal Atlas of the Veneto Region.
There are many reasons and contingencies of the project, not least the experience gained in the management of similar projects, on provincial scale (ornithological atlases) and regional (the recent herpetological atlas).
The interest in the creation of a new Mammal Atlas also comes from a few factors that have emerged recently in the local and international scene:
1. Many species of EU interest have specific conservation lines, as for Natura 2000 sites (especially the All. II of Directive 92/43/EEC) and for areas outside these protected territories (especially of ‘Annex IV of the Directive).
2. The level of urbanization of the area and the increasing road infrastructure lead to a reduction for certain species and the fragmentation of certain populations. So, there is a need for a mapping update for macro-areas.
3. Some species have experienced in the last decade a particular diffusion and expansion in certain portions of our territory, both native taxa (e.g. the common squirrel and porcupine) and allochthonous taxa (e.g. nutria). So, there is a great interest in defining the areas of current distribution of these species, evidently changed since the previous survey.
4. Currently there is an important network of potential detectors contributing to the optimal realization of the project.
The request for cooperation is then extended to all the potential discoverers.
The project starts in 2009 and will be completed in 2012. All the data available from 1990 will be also collected. The period of the survey, which varies depending on the species, is potentially extendable to all year.
Data remain property of the detector. All detectors will be cited in the final publication. Forms of collaboration in the drafting of the texts will be evaluated at the end of the project, based on the expertise and participation.
A concise annual report (in Italian) will be published every year in the website of the Associazione Faunisti Veneti.