Wildfowl is an international scientific journal, published annually by Wildfowl Press, and previously published by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (from 1948–2020). It disseminates original material on the ecology, biology and conservation of wildfowl (Anseriformes) and ecologically associated birds (such as waders, rails and flamingos), and on their wetland habitats.

All papers submitted to Wildfowl are subject to an independent peer-review process (see below).

The journal is managed by the Editorial Board.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content, free of charge, on the principle that making research widely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Copyright and licenses

Copyright for individual papers published in each issue of Wildfowl and in the Wildfowl Trust Annual Reports, since 1948, is with the respective Authors. © The Authors.

From Wildfowl 75 (2025) onwards, articles published in the journal are licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). The Editorial Board may however accept other Creative Commons licenses for individual articles, if required by funding bodies e.g. the European Research Council.

Articles in earlier (1948–2025) issues, in the Wildfowl Trust Annual Reports 1–18 and in Wildfowl 19–70, are not licensed under Creative Commons. In these volumes, all rights are reserved to the Publisher (Wildfowl Press), save that:

(a) the rights of copyright in the research articles forming each such edition remains
with The Authors. This implies that Readers can download, read, and link to the articles, but they cannot republish the articles. Authors can upload their articles in an institutional repository as a part of the journal’s open access policy; and

(b) the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (which published the journal from 1948–2020 inclusive) retains a royalty-free license in perpetuity to access and use pre-2021 issues for the purposes of research, which may involve sharing with research partners from time to time.

Overall, the ethos of Wildfowl online is that the full back catalogue of the journal be available open access, as when originally launched online by the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust in 2010. 

Page charges

There are no page charges for publishing in the journal.

Building on Conservation Evidence

Wildfowl seeks to ensure that published papers build on previous knowledge, so that conservation decisions are based on sound science. Authors, therefore, are asked to review existing literature carefully (e.g. on conservationevidence.com), and to put their own study fully and accurately into context.

Submitting a paper

Please see our "Instructions for Authors" before submitting your paper! All manuscripts should be submitted as email attachments to the Editor at wildfowljournal@gmail.com. (The automatic workflow-system at this website is not currently being used for submitting papers to Wildfowl.)

Peer-review policy

Papers submitted to the journal are first assessed by the Editor-in-Chief and Handling Editor to determine whether they meet the remit of the journal. Those that quality are then forwarded to two independent referees for peer-review, with the referees expected to return their reviews within 4-6 weeks. Referees are selected on the basis of their knowledge of and expertise in the subject area. Absence of a conflict in interest is required. A third referee may be sought if there is a substantial difference between referees in their assessment a the paper.

History

Historically the journal included the annual report of the Severn Wildfowl Trust, (founded by Sir Peter Scott and inaugurated in November 1946), along with research papers. Following publication in 1967 of the Wildfowl Trust Eighteenth Annual Report, reports on the Trust's activities were omitted from the journal, and were made available separately for its members. From 1968, the journal therefore was devoted to publishing scientific papers on the research and conservation of wildfowl, and the name was changed to Wildfowl (starting with Wildfowl 19) at this time.

In 2020, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) published its last issue of the journal, and publication rights (including for the back catalogue) were transferred to the Editor-in-Chief (as Wildfowl Press), to ensure that the journal would continue thereafter. Wildfowl continues to managed by the Editorial Board of the journal, with Wildfowl online transferring from the WWT website to tidsskrift.dk in 2025, to safeguard it for posterity.