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Population trends
The stone-curlew population in western Europe began to decline in the latter 19th century, and accelerated after the Second World War, coinciding with acceleration in the loss of lowland dry grassland and heath.
Numbers fell practically all across Europe during 1970-1990, including the large populations of Spain, Portugal and France. The Dutch population vanished altogether. The Russian population is considered stable, but the population size and trends are not fully known.
In the UK, stone-curlews have suffered from a long term decline in population size and distribution. It disappeared from the northern part of its range in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in the first half of the 20th century, and the contraction of range has continued until recent years.
Numbers of stone-curlews fell by over 85% between 1940 and 1985, when the numbers hit a low of 150-160 pairs. The reasons for the decline include reduction in area of semi-natural short grassland and changes in farming practices, which affect the suitability of the land for stone-curlews and the productivity of the birds.
Much of the close grazed chalk grassland has either been converted to arable farmland or forestry, or has become unsuitable due to reduced of grazing pressure by both sheep and rabbits. As a result, more than two-thirds of the population nested on arable farmland among spring-sown crops such as sugar beet, barley and carrots by the late 1980s.
Population density on arable land rarely exceeds one tenth of those on ideal habitat. Birds on arable land are also in danger from farming operations, although effective nest protection and marking schemes have successfully reduced this source of mortality.
Despite an increase in numbers since 1985, the status of the UK population is still critical, particularly in the peripheral areas. In the core areas population decline has been halted and it is now increasing. The current increase is due to the extensive efforts put into nest protection on arable land, without which the population would be declining at 3-4% per year.