Saving wetlands for wildlife & people

Indicators and Assessments


Conservation Indicators
Data from WWT's waterbird monitoring activities are used in the production of assessments of the status of bird populations in the UK.


Birds of Conservation Concern
The population status of birds in the UK is regularly assessed through a collaboration of the UK's leading governmental and non-governmental conservation organisations. The current review, the fourth since 1990, used a range of criteria to place a total of 246 regularly occurring species onto one of three lists: Red, Amber or Green. This categorisation provides an indication of the priority that should be given to each species when allocating resources for conservation action.

Red list species are those that are globally threatened, whose population or range has declined rapidly in recent years (i.e. by more than 50% in 25 years), or which have declined historically and not recovered. Amber list species are those whose population or range has declined moderately in recent years (by more than 25% but less than 50% in 25 years), those whose population has declined historically but recovered recently, rare species (<300 breeding pairs or <900 wintering individuals), those with internationally important populations in the UK, those with localised populations, and those with an unfavourable conservation status in Europe. Species that meet none of these criteria are Green-listed. The full list of criteria can be found in the report.

Of 246 species assessed, 52 (21.1%) were placed on the Red list, 126 (51.2%) on the Amber list and 68 (27.6%) on the Green list. Eighteen species moved on to the Red list since the last assessment in 2002, and six moved from Red to Amber.

A glossy summary report of the current list can be downloaded below, and the full paper is available from British Birds at www.britishbirds.co.uk.

Further information is also available on the WWT website at
www.wwt.org.uk/text/903/birds_of_conservaton_concern.html.

Click here for a copy of the latest BoCC assessment



The State of the UK’s Birds
The State of the UK’s Birds is an annual overview of the fortunes of wild birds in the United Kingdom, and it’s Overseas Territories. It draws together the most recent data from a range of sources and summarises the most important results from these annual, periodic and one-off surveys. The report uses these data to generate trends and produce indicators based upon them for the UK’s breeding birds and wintering waterbirds.

Click here for a copy of the latest SUKB report







State of Birds in Wales
The State of birds in Wales is an annual report giving an overview of the status of birds in Wales, from those that are still widespread and familiar to scarce birds of high conservation priority in Wales, the UK and Europe. It includes both sedentary birds that are resident all year and those that wander widely or migrate vast distances annually to or from Wales. For some of these, such as breeding seabirds and wintering waterbirds, Wales is particularly important as it hosts a large proportion of their international populations at certain stages of their lives.

Click here to download the latest State of birds in Wales




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