Support our Curlew appeal today and help protect vulnerable chicks, one nest at a time.
Our hills once rang with the evocative bubbling calls of Curlews. But today their call is falling silent. In the last 30 years, the number of Curlews in the UK has halved. With your help, we can bring them back.
We have a five-year plan to help save Curlews. By donating to our Curlew appeal today, you will help put that plan into action.
We are as ambitious in our plans to save the Curlew as we have been for Bitterns and many other species needing help to survive. With your support we could deliver another huge UK conservation success.”
The shocking and rapid decline in Curlews has been caused by massive changes in our rural landscape. The hay meadows and wet grasslands that breeding Curlews and their chicks need have vanished from many parts of the UK.
In the uplands where these habitats still exist, nests are often disturbed by farm machinery or grazing animals. An increase in predator numbers also means that more chicks are being killed than ever before.
These challenges have left Curlews struggling to raise enough young to keep the population going. With your support, we can help protect breeding Curlews. Together we can give a future to these magnificent wading birds.
Over the last decade, our Curlew conservation teams have researched, trialled, and put into action proven ways to save Curlew chicks. We know they work. In places like the Antrim Plateau in Northern Ireland, these solutions have helped grow the number of breeding Curlews by 40%.
We desperately need your help to put these solutions into action in other important places for breeding Curlews.
You’ll enable our field teams of staff, farmers and volunteers to work together to find Curlew nests as quickly as possible. Speed is vital, because Curlews nest on the ground, and so are highly vulnerable.
You’ll help us install specially designed fencing to protect the nests before predators can get to them. And you’ll help us put camera traps in place to watch over the nests, night and day. We know that many more eggs hatch when we’re there to watch over them.
You’ll help us watch over vulnerable Curlew chicks as they grow. Using radio tags, we can find out where the young chicks go and where they most need protection. We can then install more permanent anti-predator fencing to keep them safe. We will only use lethal predator control as a last resort, if all other options for protecting the chicks have been exhausted.
You’ll help us work with more farmers to create the ideal conditions for breeding Curlews on their land. By creating wet areas, farmers can make it easier for chicks to find enough insects and worms to feed on as they grow. By leaving hay meadows longer before cutting, farmers can also give young Curlews more cover from predators. Measures like these can make all the difference for a young Curlew, giving it a chance to survive.
Right now, with so many challenges to face, only one in eight Curlew chicks survives from egg to fledging. Your gift today will help put solutions in place that could help many more Curlew chicks survive. Every chick saved has the chance to become a parent and raise chicks of its own one day.
Saving Curlews will take a huge amount of dedicated work over the next five years. And it is expensive. If we can’t raise enough funds to tackle this conservation emergency, the future of the UK’s Curlews remains in doubt. But with your help we can create a hopeful future for our largest wading bird.
Your support has already helped us bring back many threatened birds from the brink of UK extinction, including Bitterns, Cirl Buntings and Stone-curlews. With your help, we can also save Curlews, one chick at a time.
Breeding Curlews share their habitat with many other species that will benefit from the conservation work you make possible. When you help us protect Curlews, you’ll help protect an incredible 84 other species, including Lapwings, Skylarks and Meadow Pipits.
Every Curlew chick counts. Each one you help save today could produce many young in its lifetime, helping restore the population.
So please give Curlew chicks a chance by supporting our urgent appeal today. Thank you.
We’ve had Curlews on this farm for four generations. Each spring they bring the sound of hope… but you worry that sound might not come back.”