Mammalwatching Meeting: NUTTER awards and community projects
It is time for the next meeting!
It will be on Saturday 27th January 22:00 Central European Time Paris / Zurich / Milano. Check your local time here: https://notime.zone/NldPwbGQot_-K
This time should be good for all of us, from Australia to the Americas, so join us!
For the zoomlink, please write to info@projectfelis.org
We will have the (very!) honorable task of selecting a shortlist for the next mammalwatching NUTTER awards for all of you to vote on. As a reminder these are the most Notable, Unique, Tantalizing, Tenacious and Enlightening Reports: The N.U.T.T.E.R awards
In the second part, we will explain what has happened since the last meeting in September and kickstart some very exciting projects helping mammals and conservation.
For the awards, please feel free to send us nominations through the mail if you cannot attend (info@projectfelis.org) or comment down below what you think are potential winners of this most prestigious award in the mammalwatching community. If you still have some reports you are working on – get on with it (looking at myself here…!). All trips from 2023 are eligible, submission of the report needs to be before the community meeting end of January. There are eight categories:
Best report
Best new site for a good species
Most inspiring conservation project / person / place visited
Most unexpected mammal encounter
Best new conservation place
Best obscure mammal
Best first report
Most helpful community member
In September we discussed several ideas for work we could do as a community to help mammalwatching and conservation. We want to build on this to launch our very own community conservation projects. The list of possible projects is below so if you have a specific skill set that might be beneficial for any of these projects – or just want to help out – please sign up now or in the next community meeting. Felis will coordinate some things, but we need the help of everyone here!
Next steps are to start small working groups to put these ideas into practice and hopefully create some great outcomes for all of us. Fill out this form if you want to participate:
https://forms.gle/4CT1rqxRXhFDQ6bDA
These are the current ideas:
a course for prospective and future mammalwatching guides
- how to become a mammalwatching guide
- how to host mammalwatchers
campaign for promoting local mammalwatching
- encourage people to give local talks / demonstrations / network
- form a group of individuals sharing ideas, materials and advice
make an animated video about the mammalwatching guidelines
- fun way to showcase appropriate behaviour
- specific skills, but a chance to do something lasting for community and conservation
build a mammalwatching database containing:
- rough ideas: guides, projects, how to have a conservation impact
- eg projects especially worth visiting through their conservation impact
- eg especially talented mammalwatching guides
finding sponsors and sponsorship to support mammalwatching and conservation
- g finding a night vision manufacturer who might want to support out work
Engaging the media
- pitch stories to Journals / Newspapers
mammalian beer labels
- collecting beer labels featuring mammals as an outreach activity
a guide on how to photograph and ID special groups like rodents and bats
- guides what to take pictures of to make identification more likely
Starting new facebook groups for mammalwatching to fill in the gaps
- get worldwide coverage
- already have Europe, North America, SE Asia, East Africa …)
- best to have people living in these regions
Hope to see you there!
Happy holidays from projectfelis with Valentin and Ruben
Cover Picture: Photo by Tim Umphreys / Unsplash
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