How to volunteer to monitor wildlife in our parks.
We need volunteers to monitor wildlife in our parks and green spaces to understand how the variety and number of plants and animals is changing in Bristol.
You can take part:
- any time you're in a park
- as part of a longer-term monitoring scheme that could take several years
Why monitor wildlife
We'll be tracking patterns, such as an increase or decrease in different plant or animal groups over the next 20 years across Bristol as part of the Bristol Wildlife Index.
This is one of the main actions of the One City Ecological Emergency Strategy.
We are introducing changes on how we manage our parks and green spaces for nature. Information from monitoring wildlife will help us to understand if this is having a positive impact across the city.
Ad hoc monitoring
You can record wildlife any time you're in a park through an app such as iNaturalist, or you can send in records directly to the local environmental records centre.
Send as many details of the record as you can, including photos where possible.
Longer-term monitoring
Longer-term monitoring of wildlife can give us the most valuable insights into changes in wildlife populations and to track the state of nature in Bristol over time.
There are lots of national wildlife recording schemes for different plant and animal groups. Find out more about how you can take part in a long-term study of wildlife in the West of England.
Contact us
For help with setting up wildlife surveys and to share your findings, email nature.parks@bristol.gov.uk.
If you're:
- leaving any wildlife monitoring equipment on site, you'll need to request permission
- looking to sign up as a Bristol Parks lead volunteer, or lead group wildlife surveys, you must apply to be a parks volunteer lead
- recording wildlife in your own time, follow the
pdf
individual volunteering guidelines(193 KB)
to help keep yourself and others safe
- You'll not be covered under Bristol City Council's personal accident insurance unless you're a trained volunteer lead and have submitted a risk assessment to the relevant Parks Volunteer Manager
- an organisation looking to carry out wildlife surveys but working under your own insurance and risk assessments, fill out the document external wildlife surveys form(21 KB) to get permission to proceed