Two recent developments make now the time to create the State of Mammals: 1) there are now multiple real-time continental monitoring schemes and 2) we now have the statistical tools to integrate these together. Our initial goal is to integrate data from the following sources.
How are our mammals doing? How do you know? The truth is, we have a lot of information about our country’s fauna, but it’s collected in different ways, and stored in different silos. We have great archives of information in museums and millions of new records from citizen scientists. We now have annual programs monitoring mammals through bat acoustics, camera traps, small mammals trapping, and hunter harvest. This new project seeks to consolidate and synthesize information on the abundance and distribution of the mammals of the United States to provide an annual report on the State of Mammals.
We aim to synthesize available information on the abundance and distribution of mammals in the United States to provide a statistically rigorous, annual assessment of the State of Mammals that serves to confirm where conditions are good and alert where more work is needed to conserve our fauna.