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Monitoring wildlife

In all our work, we believe that good conservation depends on good science

To do our work well we need to have up-to-date, reliable information about the species and habitats on our reserves, and in the wider countryside.

Many volunteers help us to monitor what is happening to wildlife on our nature reserves. We run over 70 Wildlife Training Workshops each year to give people a chance to learn or improve their wildlife identification and monitoring skills. Volunteers can then go on to join one of our Wildlife Trust Ecology Groups and use their knowledge on our nature reserves to help us check what is happening to wildlife, and that our management work is having a positive effect.

Our staff carry out surveys of the most important sites for wildlife in our three counties – these are known as County Wildlife Sites. Some of these are our own nature reserves but others are in private ownership.

The Wildlife Trust is also playing a leading role in the creation and development of local record centres. These will become a very important source of pooled information about wildlife in each county.