If you have recently come across a desman in the Pyrenees, now is the time to report.
Nobody really knows how many specimens there are of this small mammal, nicknamed the trumpet rat and living near waterways in the massif.
In 15 years, Frédéric Blanc, project manager at the Conservatory of Natural Spaces (CEN) in Occitanie for the Life + Desman program, has only seen them four times in the wild.
This funny animal has also been the subject of a conservation program since 2014 in the French Pyrenees.
Considered until now as a “vulnerable species”, then “near threatened” in 2017, the desman has just been classified as “in danger of extinction” in the latest report from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
We no longer find his droppings in strings
An alert for this discreet species which does not surprise the specialists of this animal which lives only in the Pyrenean massif, the north of Spain and Portugal.
The characteristic rosary droppings of the desman were still seen on the side of the Salat river in Ariège a few years ago but this is no longer the case.
Read alsoBiodiversity: the trumpet rat, more threatened than feared
“We noticed on the ground that in the sectors usually frequented by desmans, we no longer see them, assures Frédéric Blanc.
Our work has shown that its distribution area in the French Pyrenees has shrunk by 60% compared to the 1990s. This new classification will allow the European Commission to increase the pressure and consideration of desman, particularly in development projects”.
It is believed that the decline in the desman population is linked to cumulative factors, such as the development of waterways, dams or the production of artificial snow.