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Changelog

Source: NEWS.md

nwrspeciesr 0.1.0

Initial release. Provides a read-only R interface to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service NWRSpecies (formerly FWSpecies) occurrence database.

Features

  • get_species_list() retrieves refuge species occurrence records from the public SpeciesList/items endpoint, with optional filters for region, refuge, taxonomic category, occurrence, and ITIS TSN, plus sorting and pagination.
  • download_species_list() retrieves records from the CSV DownloadFile endpoint, the documented way to pull all records in a single call when combined with a large rows_per_page.
  • get_species_categories() and get_species_occurrences() return the valid category and occurrence values accepted by the API.
  • get_refuges() retrieves a live refuge name / unit code crosswalk from the FWS Unit REST API via the suggested fwsunitr package.

Refuge name resolution

  • get_species_list() and download_species_list() accept a refuge_name argument as an alternative to refuge_code. Matching is case-insensitive and tolerant of common variants (e.g. “Kenai”, “kenai nwr”, “Kenai National Wildlife Refuge”).
  • Names that match more than one refuge (e.g. “Yukon”, matching both Yukon Delta and Yukon Flats) return an informative error listing the candidates.
  • A bundled refuges crosswalk is used by default; a custom or live table may be supplied via the crosswalk argument.

Input validation

  • category_name, occurrence, and sort_by are validated locally against their documented value sets before a request is sent. Matching is case-insensitive and values are normalized to the casing the API expects.