I was asked whether I use Google maps to plot locations of badger setts as "it's an handy tool".
The answer is no. Google maps may be saved as "private" but it is far from that. Allow me to explain. When we carried out the Bristol Fox Deaths Study - https://terryhoopernaturalist.blogspot.com/2026/01/results-from-bristol-fox-deaths-and.html- we used a Google map set to private. There were just two people with access to that map and yet, in the space of two days, over 50 views were recorded.
It made no sense that a private map under the Google terms had so many views. According to Google the maps you make are private unless you share a link. We did not. Somewhere and somehow persons not allowed to view the maps were seeing them. I stopped using Google maps after an extra 25 views were recorded in one day.
As far as I am concerned animal safety is paramount. If I cannot guarantee 100% privacy on locations I am not using any internet tool. Before the internet I started out with index cards and a good quality road map top plot locations etc of other animals. I still use the map and index cards -no one sees them if I do not want them to.
If I give someone my word that a location will remain private then I stick by that. Since 1977 I have never broken that promise to anyone and I intend to keep those promises.
What happens to the information once I slip this mortal coil? I have someone to pass it all along to. Avon Wildlife Trust will certainly not get a hold of it. the Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre (BRERC) will not get them. Both organisations have been asked for assistance in the past and the Trust has failed to respond on every occasion. BRERC considers (I apologise for the ego but I need to quote others) "a noted naturalist" with n international reputation not worthy of seeing any records kept -remember that I was a UK police forces wildlife consultant from 1977-2018 and a m,ember of the Partnership Against Wildlife Crime but that, it seems is not enough to make me trustworthy.
So Index cards and map it will remain and after I am gone it is up to the successor what they do.
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