Seabird 2000

Other

The Seabird 2000 dataset is a full census of all of the breeding seabirds in Britain and Ireland. The data was gathered by over 1000 surveyors mainly between the years 1999 and 2003 from both coastal and inland colonies. The main objectives of the survey were: (1) to obtain distribution and population information for all 25 species of seabird that regularly breed in the UK; and (2) to get baseline figures for those species that have been surveyed poorly up to now.

To meet these objectives a set of count sections were set up throughout Britain and Ireland and counts were made for all species.

The dataset comprises detailed counts of seabirds together with: habitat information, predator information, count units, weather conditions on the day of the count.

The spatial coverage was dependent on species with colonial nesting seabirds having virtually complete coverage; whereas, other species, notably some gull species having much less coverage.

For a full description of the survey methodology, see 'Seabird Populations of Britain and Ireland' (2004), Mitchell, P.I., Newton, S.F., Ratcliffe, N. and Dunn, T.E. Published by T & AD Poyser.

The Seabird 2000 dataset contains some additional attributes in addition to the general NBN Gateway attributes (see NBN metadata).

Data and resources

Additional information

Temporal extent	1994-01-01 – 2003-05-25
Date (creation)	2005-03-29
Date (publication)	2006-01-25
Status	onGoing
Update frequency	asNeeded
Metadata language	en
License	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Source metadata	ISO 19115 XML
Last updated	2026-11-04
Created	2026-11-04
API	package_show