Good hazel dormouse news from the Netherlands

Translated from the Dutch Mammal Society:

Friday, August 28th, 2015

In the extreme south of the country lives the hazel dormouse. This rare creature lives there hidden in forest edges with lots of blackberries and hazelnuts. In recent years, many protection measures have been taken to expand the habitat of the dormouse. In the Vijlenerbosch forest the Forestry Commission and the IKL have restored several hundred meters of forest edge to create space and light again for the hazel dormouse and on the premises of the Stichting Ark blackberries are encouraged. The dormice have been monitored for more than 20 years, making it clear that the dormouse has benefited greatly from all these actions, with a record number of nests in 2014 as a result. …

On all 48 routes where there was counting no less than 535 (!) nests were observed. A great result compared to previous years, where sometimes only 200 nests were counted.

Last Thursday, 20 breeding pairs of rare hazel dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius) were reintroduced in the Yorkshire Dales national park as part of a national scheme to reverse the decline of one of Britain’s most threatened mammals: here.