Curlew comeback
Anew initiative has been launched to secure the future of the curlew, one of England’s most iconic and threatened birds.
The Curlew Recovery Partnership brings together all those with an interest in curlew conservation, including land managers, farmers, gamekeepers, policymakers and researchers.
The initial aim of the partnership is to halt the decline of the curlew, whose numbers have fallen by about 50 per cent in the last 25 years, resulting in a population of just 58,000 breeding pairs across the UK.
“The key factors driving the curlew’s demise are habitat loss through intensification of agriculture and predation pressure from the likes of crows and foxes,” said Samantha Franks from the British Trust for Ornithology, one of the partnership’s numerous member organisations.
“Protecting curlew nests against predators, marking nests to identify them in fields that may otherwise be mown, and providing compensation to farmers to not mow grass as early as they sometimes do, are really easy measures to implement to help the curlew,” added Franks.
Whilst the new initiative just covers England, similar schemes to save the curlew are already in place across Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
It is hoped that curlew recovery measures will be adequately incorporated into the new post-Brexit environmental land management schemes that will replace the EU agri-environmental schemes. Simon Birch
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About the initiative: curlewrecovery.org