​Project objectives

The main goal of the project is to collect the most complete information on the distribution of mammals in the Belarus and provide free access to this information. Technical details of the project are described here.

Professionals, amateurs, government agencies are interested in publishing detailed data on the distribution of animals. Today, such data are scattered over many hundreds of publications, most often in some inaccessible editions. Most of the information is concentrated in unpublished reports, diaries and other handwritten sources. Published distribution maps and narrative description of the species distribution are not detailed enough for today's public request. A huge layer of information is completely inaccessible to the scientific community - these are numerous observations of naturalists published daily on social networks and other Internet resources. At the same time, amateur naturalists in many countries play a leading part in the species distribution registering. Of course, the correct identification of the mammal species, unlike birds, is often available only to a specialist. The project "Mammals of Belarus" will provide professional support for each record in the database, including advice on the correct identification of animals, traces of their vital activities etc.

One of the main objectives of the project is to create the Atlas of mammal distribution in the Belarus. This is a long-term task. In many countries of Europe, national animal distribution databases have already been created and are annually actively updated with new encounters and findings. In the first edition of the European Atlas of Mammals (1999), the territory of the Russian Federation is not filled with data. The reason for this is the lack of information suitable for analysis. The Mammals of Belarus project will make every possible effort to ensure that our country is adequately represented on the pages of this Atlas second edition.