The first edition of this book was used by a wide range of biologists across the world and we had a lot of kind feedback saying how useful a book it was. In order to bring it back up to date we produced this second edition, in which every chapter has been updated. Some chapters have different authors. I am particularly delighted that Charles Krebs has written the mammal chapter. He obviously has huge experience of mammal studies, unlike me. For the first edition I stepped in to write this chapter at the very end, despite never having carried out a mammal census. Since many projects fail through problems with planning, we have included a completely new chapter on this subject. There is also a new chapter on sampling.

Gratis Book Scheme

The aim of the Gratis Book Scheme is to provide ecological and conservation books to those who would otherwise be unable to obtain them. Almost three and a half thousand books have already been distributed under this scheme to one hundred and sixty different countries. Cambridge University Press will donate two hundred copies of this second edition of Ecological Census Techniques for those outside Western Europe, North America, New Zealand, Australia and Japan who would otherwise be unable to obtain a copy. The British Ecological Society has offered to pay for the postage and nhbs.com co-ordinates the distribution. Please see www.nhbs.com/Conservation/gratis-books to request a copy for yourself or someone else.