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Third UK Habitats Directive report (2013) - audit trail for UK species detailsHabitats-Directive-A17-2013-UK-reporting-info-Species-details-supporting-notes.csv

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Habitat or species	Domain	Code	Name	reporting format title	field name in database	NOTE
S	Species (marine)	S1223	Leatherback turtle (<I>Dermochelys coriacea</I>)	1.1.1 Distribution map	distribution_map	It can be seen that leatherback turtles have been recorded from all around the UK but large differences in concentrations between areas are also evident. The greatest concentrations of sightings and strandings are off Cornwall, Wales, and in the Solway Firth while the least are off the Channel and North Sea. There are 104 records of leatherback turtle in the TURTLE database for the 2007-2012 period in UK waters; 32 from England, 21 Scotland, 42 Wales, 3 Northern Ireland, 4 Isle of Man and 2 'offshore'. The majority (90) of these records come from live sightings of leatherback turtles recorded at sea; a further 11 were recorded as dead stranded and a further 3 dead sighted at sea.
S	Species (marine)	S1223	Leatherback turtle (<I>Dermochelys coriacea</I>)	1.1.2 Method used - map	distribution_method	The distribution of this species is based on records of strandings and sightings held within the National Biodiversity Gateway database. The source of these data is the UK's national TURTLE database which stores opportunistically recorded accounts of this species in UK (and Irish) waters. The records for 2006-2010 have been mapped as presence on a 50x50km grid. Many of the records are of stranded animals and there will likely be a correlation between the location of strandings and the presence of a coastal monitoring/stranding network. There tends to be more records where there is observational coverage. The amount of observation effort by area is not recorded and therefore, species counts can not be corrected for it to map relative abundance in UK waters. The effect of varying observational effort on numbers recorded is evident when comparing the number of records during the current recording period (2007-2012 = 104) with the previous recording period (2001-2006 = 354); the difference is due to loss of observation effort in particular key areas e.g. Solway Firth (Penrose, pers. comm. TURTLE database manager).
S	Species (marine)	S1223	Leatherback turtle (<I>Dermochelys coriacea</I>)	1.1.5 Range map	range_map	The range map has only been reported for Gibraltar – ie within the Marine Mediterranean biogeographic region of UK waters. This species is an occasional species in UK waters, and as such its distribution/range in the Marine Atlantic biogeographic region is unknown and therefore has not been reported The TURTLE database holds records from throughout the UK's Exclusive Economic Zone. Therefore, the boundary of the EEZ is used to approximate the range of this species in UK waters. There are also records in the adjacent EEZ of Eire.
S	Species (marine)	S1223	Leatherback turtle (<I>Dermochelys coriacea</I>)	2.1 Biogeographical region & marine regions	region	Leatherback turtles are a rare but nevertheless regular visitor around the British Isles (Brongersma 1972) during the summer months. Recent studies have suggested that the waters of the UK represent the northerly limit of routine seasonal leatherback foraging migrations (McMahon and Hays 2006, Witt et al. 2007).