Big Mammal Day rules
After a rather lengthy interval, we are posting the ‘draft but hopefully close to final’ regulations for Big Mammal Days, or 24 hour Mammal Days. The rules were discussed at the last mammalwatching meeting, and there has been additional input from a variety of mammalwatching community members. Given the difficulty of identifying some of the smaller mammal species – notably the bats which sometimes cannot be identified without looking at their dentition – we have tried to come up with rules that provide a degree leeway on identification, while hewing to the concept of encouraging people to develop their natural history and wildlife identification skills.
If you are interested in Big Mammal Days, we encourage you to have a look at the regulations and if you have any further ideas and inputs please put them in the comment section below. Hopefully we’ll get the final rules posted by the end of May – until a new snag appears that none of us had thought of….
Big Mammal Day Rules_Draft
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10 Comments
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covillbirdy
Great work!
I am curious if you all had talked about the idea of “unshared species” and if there’s a maximum limit for a Big Day?
As in birding Big Days, the team can only have a maximum of 5% unshared species between them. Example being if the team total between all members is 100 species, but 7 of those are unshared (I.e. not everyone in the group saw/heard it) then the final total would be 98 species. Knocking 2 off to make the total unshared 5% (instead of 7%).How does this fit in with a Mammal Big Day?
I image a Bobcat or some mustelid running across the road not to be relocated as a perfect example of a possible unshared species on a Mammal Big Day. That type of thing happens a lot on birding Big Days!-
Charles Foley
Hi Covill,
Thanks for your input.
I think the original ABA birding rules had the rule of 95% of all species needing to be seen by all participants, but they seem to have quietly dropped it. Now I believe (though as usual I may be wrong) that everyone keeps their own tally and the final number is the total number of species seen by any group member, which is what we’ve done here. In my BMD’s I followed the 95% rule though in the three that I’ve done so far only on one occasion has someone missed seeing one of the species so perhaps it may not be a big issue. I can go either way on this, though for camaraderie’s sake it might be best to not have the 95% rule: the person who has missed the animal feels bad enough already without all their team members wishing to tar and feather them as well.
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vmoser
Some things that could be discussed:
“In cases where two mammals of the same genus are clearly visually different then up to two
species may be ascribed to genus level” => I would say one species per genus only. I feel there might be too much incentive to stretch the rules otherwise.Then in the long-term, I think the statement “The ‘species identification’ feature on bat detectors cannot be used as identification confirmation due to unreliability.” might not hold up: The species identification for some species is already very good and with larger databases and better algorithms, it will get even better. I can imagine that it might even become better than many experts at some point.
I suggest to reformulate: “The ‘species identification’ feature on bat detectors cannot be solely used as identification confirmation.” But it is essentially the same with thermals and binoculars, who will all come with AI-assisted identification within the next years. Identification must be made by a human, not a machine in the end.I very much support the initiative of no aircraft, and even suggest encouraging “green big days” with public transport and muscle strength as the gold standard 😉
Last but not least: In the age of social media, reporting platforms, and so on, I am not so sure about the Outside information rule – I see the birders have this as well. It’s not as easy to avoid information now, especially if you share your progress live from the field. What about a rule that only public information might be used on the day itself (e.g. iNaturalist observations, Social media posts)? After all, mammalwatching should also be a social activity…
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Charles Foley
Hi Valentin,
Many thanks for the suggestions. I’ve made comments below:
1) [In cases where two mammals of the same genus are clearly visually different than up to two species may be ascribed to genus level” I would say one species per genus only. I feel there might be too much incentive to stretch the rules otherwise.]
Yes, that’s what we’d originally agreed at the meeting. However, Venkat brought it up with regards to small mammals where two species are impossible to tell apart visually, but they can be differentiated from other species within the same genus.
‘What about say Myotis californicus/ciliolabrum, or Myotis evotis/thysanodes – californicus/ciliolabrum is visually super different from evotis/thysanodes, but unless you have them in the hand or get call recordings of the individual in question, it’s hard to give a 100% certain species-level ID for either pair. Similarly, in certain areas Peromyscus sonoriensis/leucopus (short-tailed) and P. boylii/truei (long-tailed). I reckon you should be able to count both as for sure you aren’t double counting, even if you don’t have them at species level.
My inclination is to give as much leeway as we can in the identification of the smaller beasts because, let’s face it, they’re hard enough as it is.
2) [Then in the long-term, I think the statement “The ‘species identification’ feature on bat detectors cannot be used as identification confirmation due to unreliability.” might not hold up: The species identification for some species is already very good and with larger databases and better algorithms, it will get even better. I can imagine that it might even become better than many experts at some point. I suggest to reformulate: “The ‘species identification’ feature on bat detectors cannot be solely used as identification confirmation.” But it is essentially the same with thermals and binoculars, who will all come with AI-assisted identification within the next years. Identification must be made by a human, not a machine in the end.]
Fair point. Many current bat detectors appear programmed to come up with some sort of answer of what species it is – regardless of how accurate that conclusion might be. I guess we want people to be aware of this and not blindly follow what the detector says. By putting the emphasis on humans being responsible for the final id, that serves the same purpose.
3) [I very much support the initiative of no aircraft, and even suggest encouraging “green big days” with public transport and muscle strength as the gold standard 😉]
Muscle strength. Gulp.
4) [Last but not least: In the age of social media, reporting platforms, and so on, I am not so sure about the Outside information rule – I see the birders have this as well. It’s not as easy to avoid information now, especially if you share your progress live from the field. What about a rule that only public information might be used on the day itself (e.g. iNaturalist observations, Social media posts)? After all, mammalwatching should also be a social activity…]
Hmm. I’m not buying this one. Partly that’s because I still can’t figure out how Instagram works let alone how to stream a big day live, but mainly because most people concurred that a Big Day is supposed to be a test of your natural history skills, which includes figuring out how to find animals. I think people should be encouraged to gather as much information in advance via whatever medium they can but once the Big Day starts then it’s you (and your team-mates) vs nature.
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vmoser
Hello Charles – I see the reasons for the two genera. I would still say “bad luck”, but there are always some rules that one would do slightly differently. I trust the people not to take advantage of it. For your fourth point, I like the idea of you (and your teammates) vs nature. One probably has no time to do social media anyway…
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BWKeelan
I have done a number of mammal and birding big days, and I believe it is important to have a rule regarding the percentage of species that must be seen and identified by every single participant on a team. The 95% criterion is still used by the American Birding Association (https://www.aba.org/aba-big-day-count-rules/). Without some limitation like this, larger teams have too great an advantage over smaller teams, so that team size grows and team cohesion diminishes. My understanding is that when the ABA first instituted this rule, larger team totals dropped by about 10%! I feel that the 95% value used by the ABA is pretty generous for birds, but for mammals I think a lower threshold, maybe 90%, would be reasonable. This reflects the greater difficulty getting every team member on a nocturnal mammal obscured by foliage, compared to detection of birds in the daylight, largely by vocalization. — Brian Keelan (keelan@warpmail.net)
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Charles Foley
Thanks for the comments Brian. Yes indeed you (and Covill) are correct that the 95% rule is still being used by the ABA. Not quite sure how I missed that. I’m impressed at how much of a difference it seems to make in the birding big day totals. Let’s go with your suggestion that all individuals in a team need to see 90% of the species. Any ideas what the birders do when the percentage is not a full number? Do they always round down or do they round down below 0.4 and up from 0.5-0.9?
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BWKeelan
Hi, Charles, I don’t think anyone ever rounds up. For example, if the group has 49 species and 44 were independently identified by all, the ratio is 44/49 = 0.898, which is below the proposed minimum of 0.9. One unshared species would have to be removed from the group list (usually the one identified least decisively or by the fewest team members), yielding 44/48 = 0.917, which is now reportable with a total of 48. If the whole group had just managed to latch onto one more species, the ratio would have been 45/50 = 0.9 exactly, reportable as 50 species.
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Sebastian Kennerknecht
Well done Charles, looks fantastic. Glad you put the ethics guidelines in there as well!