The EURING exchange code 2000

Abstract

The EURING code, which has been the European standard coding system for observations on marked birds, has undergone a major revision and extension resulting in the EURING EXCHANGE CODE 2000. Major aspects of change have a background in computer-technology, a shift in scientific questions and in the interaction between the two. Over the last decades, studies aimed at measuring survival rates and dispersal of individuals have become major questions for bird ringing besides migration research. In these studies one has many observations on the same individual. Therefore, the old code, where each record had a ringing and a finding (dead or alive) part, has been replaced and now each record describes one encounter with the bird. This also facilitates coding all the ringing data, before any subsequent observations have been made. New fields and changed coding make it possible to record many more details about methods used and greater precision of coordinates. The new code specifically allows for recording repeated observations of the same individual arising from other marking systems, such as e.g. radio- or satellite tracking or transponders. The code is freely available and it is hoped that many people will use it, since the future opportunities of using data from different sources that have been coded in the same way are enormous.