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August 19, 2004

Records of non-native birds in the UK

A joint appeal from the British Ornithologist's Union and the Rare Birds Breeding Panel

The Rare Breeding Birds Panel (RBBP) has, since 1996, monitored the establishment and spread of many non-native species breeding within the UK and produces an annual report (published in British Birds) detailing, county by county, the numbers and breeding status of these species. The British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC) is responsible for the maintenance of the British List and the categorisation of species on the List. The two bodies work together in relation to introduced species.

In the current context, the two relevant British List categories are defined as follows:

Category C - Species that although introduced now derive from the resulting self-sustaining populations.

Category E - Species that have been recorded as introductions, human assisted transportees or escapees from captivity and whose breeding populations, if any, are thought not to be self-sustaining.

Species on Category C form part of the official British List, those on Category E do not (unless they are species on Categories A, B or C of the List).

The BOURC uses the information gathered by RBBP to decide whether a species may be eligible for elevation from Category E to Category C and makes recommendations to the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) accordingly. In this way, changes to our national avifauna can be tracked, status changes recorded, official lists updated and information gathered that helps us better understand the effects of humans on bird populations.

It has become apparent that the data submitted on non-native species, on which the RBBP bases its annual report, are far from comprehensive and that the overall picture of the status of many species is thus incomplete. There are several reasons for this. Some observers may be unaware of the need to record introduced species. Others may show a marked disinterest in submitting such records to their county recorders and that, in turn, makes it impossible for the recorders to provide RBBP with the information required.

BOURC, RBBP and JNCC believe that it is very important to maintain an up-to-date and comprehensive view of the status of introduced non-natives species. Also, one of the key recommendations of Defra’s recent Non-native Species Working Group’s review of policy (www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-countryside/resprog/findings/non-native/report.pdf) was to “Establish adequate monitoring and surveillance for non-native species in Great Britain.”

We therefore appeal to all observers to submit records of non-native species seen in the wild to their county recorders.. In this context, we would ask for records of all species on Category C (except Red-legged Partridge and Common Pheasant) and Category E, but not those with the joint categorisation AC (see BOU Website for full British List).

For any non-natives falling into those categories, it would be very helpful to submit full details, including (where known) locality, date, numbers, age/sex and especially breeding activity/status. Only in this way will we be able to monitor the status of these species to the ultimate benefit of our native avifauna.

Posted by Surfbirds at August 19, 2004 07:15 PM

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