The Duchy of Cornwall helps curlew recovery

ST readers will be relieved to learn that the Duchy of Cornwall is set to release a further 30 curlew in July and August, having already released 60 on Dartmoor to date. As with the lapwing — a bird that has suffered a similar decline in Britain and which nature writer Mary Colwell last month announced was now absent from Dartmoor — curlew numbers have been smashed by predation from crows and changes in land management. The rises in predation are likely resultant of the lack of gamekeepers and effective pest control on Dartmoor.

The red-listed curlew’s breeding population has declined by 85% since 1985 in Devon. This year, the Duchy of Cornwall continues to support the conservation of the species and will drive forward the recovery project again this summer.

The Dartmoor Curlew Recovery Project takes place on Duchy land, where landscape-scale plans have been devised to enhance curlew habitat, undertake targeted predator control and use an innovative technique developed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) to ‘head-start’ curlew.

The WWT and Natural England identified curlew eggs laid alongside RAF runways in East Anglia that are otherwise removed to protect aircraft, which could be incubated, with the chicks reared to support smaller populations elsewhere. The Dartmoor project is the first UK upland example of its kind for curlew conservation.

The curlew population in Devon has declined by 85% since 1985