Necropsy data for predatory birds found dead in UK, 2018-2024

Published by:
Environmental Information Data Centre
Last updated:
02 July 2026
Topic:
Not added
Licence:
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Summary

This dataset provides provenance data, necropsy observations, including cause of death, age, sex and nutritional status for predatory birds received by the Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme (PBMS) between 2018 and 2024. Dead birds from across Britain were collected by volunteers and submitted to the PBMS. For each carcass, provenance, collection date, age, sex and fat score (a six point visual assessment of body condition) were recorded, and a necropsy was carried out to determine the probable cause of death. During necropsy, observations were documented and samples retained in the PBMS archive, labelled with a unique carcass reference number, species and tissue type. Multiple tissues were collected, weighed and archived at −20 °C, including liver, combined kidneys, brain, internal fat, femur bone, primary feathers and whole wing. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/851a5053-20d0-4711-a197-002a5d81cc82

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Supporting information ZIP 02 July 2026 Not available
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Added to data.gov.uk
2026-06-29
Access contraints
If you reuse this data, you should cite: Walker, L., Potter, E., Dodd, B. (2026). Necropsy data for predatory birds found dead in UK, 2018-2024. NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre https://doi.org/10.5285/851a5053-20d0-4711-a197-002a5d81cc82
Harvest GUID
851a5053-20d0-4711-a197-002a5d81cc82
Extent
Latitude: 60.861° to °
Longitude: -8.648° to 1.768°
Spatial reference system
Dataset reference date
2026-06-08 (publication)
Frequency of update
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(pointOfContact, author, owner, publisher, custodian)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng
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