Notable Species

Records are available from the WSBRC for legally protected, UK BAP priority and other key species found and recorded within Wiltshire and Swindon.

The WSBRC uses the Recorder 6 biological recording software to manage its data and this program uses the National Biodiversity Network’s Species Dictionary which was compiled and is managed by the Natural History Museum. The majority of the content of the Species Dictionary is provided by experts and aims to provide a standard reference for species names and designation statuses for use within the NBN and across the UK biodiversity recording community.

Over the past thirty years, numerous lists of conservation status have been produced - Red Lists, Biodiversity Action Plan Priority Lists, species listed on European Directives, species listed on the Schedules of the Wildlife & Countryside Act, together with lists of rare and scarce species. These status ‘checklists’ are all available from within the Species Dictionary which is updated regularly at WSBRC through software updates for Recorder 6. This allows us to be able to use and provide the most up to date nomenclature and status information for any species and is the basis of our notable species outputs.

Species which are notable locally, and which are included in the Wiltshire Biodiversity Action Plan, but have no national significance are also included in any reports. These have ‘county’ as their status designation.

A list of species with UK conservation status has also been collated nationally by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). Their list (in spreadsheet form) contains over 8000 “taxa" that have been assigned some form of rarity, threat or legal status in Great Britain or the UK, of which nearly 1,000 are found, or have been found, in Wiltshire. For more information and to download this list see the JNCC website.