The University Mammal Challenge is an annual competition organised by the Mammal Society that encourages students to monitor the mammals on their campus, increase engagement and raise awareness of UK mammals to help protect them. The challenge runs from the first week of February until National Mammal Week in the last week of April to help boost mammal records in a time period that they are often lower. Over 40 student teams from across the UK are taking part in the 2026 University Mammal Challenge and this year, the University of Kent has a team for the first time – The Rodentifiers!
There are around 90 species of mammals in the UK and as a team of ecology and conservation students, we were all very interested in seeing how many of those species we would be able to record on campus as well as sharing our love for mammals with our wider community at the University of Kent. We decided to create a team so that we would be able to not only achieve those aims but also learn a lot ourselves too!
(Meet the Team! From left to right: Alex, Nat, Nathan, Elinor, Tristan)
In the first two months of the competition, we have carried out many surveys to increase the data that we have on the mammals on campus. We have done this by setting up camera traps across campus, running hedgehog footprint tunnel surveys and completing foot transects and bat surveys. In addition to this, we have been running events like a Valentines mammal board, a talk about small mammal footprints by Jazz Woollard and the creation of a bat buffet planter in collaboration with Kent Community Oasis Garden.
(From left to right: A photo taken during our mammal mapper event looking at mammal signs. Our Valentines Board! Putting up one of our camera traps)
Taking part in this challenge has allowed us to get a much more in-depth view of the mammals that call our campus home than we ever have before and also allowed us to see the impact of the work that we do to create habitats for mammals. Seeing voles, shrews and wood mice at Kent Community Oasis Garden using the dead-hedges, log piles and ponds that have been created there is really rewarding. We have also really enjoyed being able to engage with people and getting them interested in what species are using our campus. Throughout the challenge we have been using Mammal Mapper to record our mammal sightings and being able to get other people to join in and start logging what they see too has been great as it is a great way to get people to start noticing the natural world around them and become more curious about what species actually live on campus (also don’t forget to write The Rodentifiers in the comments of any observation you make on mammal mapper to earn us points!)
(On the left is a camera trap image of a badger and on the right is a photo of a bank vole taken by Elinor Casey)
We were able to earn the most points in the first month of the challenge, but we are not slowing down any time soon! So far throughout the challenge we have been able to record a range of different mammal species from bats to badgers, and we hope to record many more in the last month of the challenge as some are now waking up from hibernation. Look out for upcoming events including owl pellet dissection, bat walks and collaborations with Kent Community Oasis Garden. You can also follow The Rodentifiers on Instagram to see what we have been up to at rodentifiers_uok