France
Based at Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (link: https://www.mnhn.fr/en), the French Bird Ringing Scheme (Centre de Recherches sur la Biologie des Populations d'Oiseaux, link: https://crbpo.mnhn.fr/) has been operating since the 1930's. The scheme mainly contributed to the Atlas with data from France, but also from Northern and Western Africa. All available ringing data documenting bird movements have now been digitalized. About three quarters of these data have been contributed by volunteer bird ringers implementing national monitoring projects (mainly for songbirds), whereas the last quarter has been collected by groups of ringers specialized in the monitoring of selected species (mainly for large birds) on their own initiative. Most organizations that engaged in bird monitoring in France over recent decades are listed here (direct link: https://crbpo.mnhn.fr/spip.php?article663).
We acknowledge the fundamental contribution over the past century of thousands of bird ringers who marked birds in France, and other thousands of persons of the general public that reported recoveries of ringed birds. Unfortunately, we cannot name all of them, and it would not be fair to name only those of the two past decades. We warmly thank all ringers, and all organizations that supported their activity, for their fundamental contribution to the study of birds by ringing in France, and therefore to the present Atlas.
We stress that data for large birds have mainly been produced by few, major data contributors, who dedicated much time, resource and effort to the study of these species. The responsible persons for these species-targeted ringing projects are listed on our webpage (search our website for "Annuaire des programmes personnels"). We thank all of them for making their public data available for the Atlas.
We thank the governmental institutions that financially supported bird ringing over the long term in France: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ministère en charge de l'Environnement, and Office Français de la Biodiversité / Office National de la Chasse et la Faune Sauvage.
Contact the scheme: provost@mnhn.fr