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Topic: NERC Act schedule 41 species

I know this subject has been discussed before, but I still despair that the regulation are designed to make our life difficult.

Our Wildlife Trust have just asked me for a full list of the NERC S41 species in our area - simple (I thought) use the limit to designation option creating a report in Recorder ... wrong, this does not give the right answer, but it is not a problem with Recorder or the Species Dictionary, they are both correct.

The problem was a number of common species were missing from the resultant list including bullfinch which we know occurs in Staffordshire. The reason is that Pyrrhula pyrrhula subsp. pileata is the ONLY bullfinch taxon which is listed on schedule 41 - now on the whole birders DO NOT record to sub-species so all our bullfinch records are attached to Pyrrhula pyrrhula and ignored by the S41 filter

When are the people responsible for producing these lists (which are important for planning, etc.) going to talk to the actual recorders and data holders before coming up with the candidate taxa for the list

A worse example is Marsh Tit Poecile palustris - the only entry on the S41 list is Poecile palustris subsp. palustris/dresseri - the individual sub-species are not included - according to the Gateway this S41 taxon only occurs in 2 10km squares in Cumbria, patently ridiculous!

OK rant over

Craig

Craig Slawson
Staffordshire Ecological Record

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Re: NERC Act schedule 41 species

It also applies to skylark and a couple of others. I will bump my previous posts in the species dictionary.

Gordon Barker
Biological Survey Data Manager
National Trust