Action plan to save UK Curlews from extinction launched for World Curlew Day

Monday 21 April is World Curlew Day, the perfect time to launch the UK Action Plan for Curlew. In this special feature, RSPB Curlews in Crisis Senior Manager Suzannah Rockett looks at how the actions set out in the plan aim to save Curlews from extinction in the UK. 

Curlews are Europe’s largest wading bird. They have a haunting bubbling call and distinctive long down-curved bills, perfect for probing wetlands for food. In autumn and winter, you’ll find them along the coast, while in spring and summer they head to our moorlands and farmland to breed. Huge declines saw Curlews added to the UK Red List of highest conservation concern in 2015.

You may not first associate the northern city of Carlisle with these iconic wading birds, but in August 2024 the city hosted experts from across Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England to collectively develop a critical UK Action Plan to save Curlews.

Funded by the Curlew LIFE project and independently facilitated by Professor Des Thompson, passionate experts from across the UK spent two days working through the challenges Curlews face and the actions needed to save them. Subsequent drafts and discussions were held over autumn and winter, before the final plan was completed in time for the 2025 breeding season.

We are calling for urgent action to halt the decline of Curlews and, in particular, government support for farmers to help protect their nests and chicks, and ensure the birds have suitable habitat, where they can find food and breed. Curlews have been in sharp decline across the UK since the 1980s. Changes to farming practices, driven by agricultural policy, have led to a loss of habitat, and a rise in predators is impacting on the numbers of chicks surviving.

The Action Plan sets out the key interventions needed to reverse the decline of Curlews. Government-funded support for nature-friendly farming is critical: breeding Curlews are farmland birds, nesting in hay and sileage fields and on moorland grazed by sheep, cattle and ponies.

The four-year Curlew LIFE project demonstrated how nature-friendly farming can help these struggling birds. To meet the UK’s targets for nature recovery, it’s vital we have adequate funding to support farmers in these efforts.

1. Accept and communicate that urgent, co-ordinated action is needed across the UK, and establish a Curlew Recovery Task Force to galvanise action.
    
2. Extend effective protected areas network for breeding Curlews, including establishment of Wader Recovery Areas with associated resource for management.
    
3. Develop the existing Curlew Fieldworker Toolkit as a ‘Curlew Conservation and Management Toolkit’ for use by all organisations and land users, recognising major benefits for both wider nature and key ecosystem services.
    
4. Establish well-designed and effective Land Management Schemes and clear private finance mechanisms that enable delivery of the Conservation Toolkit.
    
5. Improve understanding of, and address, the causes of high densities of generalist predators in the UK, and ensure that evidence-based predation management is considered alongside habitat improvements as part of the Conservation Toolkit. Measures should be at site level as there is no 'one size fits all' approach.
    
6. Support evidence-based monitoring, adaptive management, research and innovation essential for reducing the decline in Curlews across the UK.

The Curlew population has been on a steep decline in Northern Ireland, with numbers having dropped by 82% since 1987. The RSPB has been working in partnership with around 100 farmers in the Antrim Hills, one of the last strongholds for Curlew in Northern Ireland.

Here, through a combination of funding from the RSPB, the Curlew LIFE project and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs’ (DAERA) Environmental Farming Scheme, farmers have been supported to manage their land for breeding wading birds. And we have seen a remarkable turnaround in their fortunes.

The funding supported farmers to manage rush and scrub on their land, creating suitable habitat for Curlews to feed and breed. It also supported the creation of scrapes – wet, muddy areas providing soft ground for chicks to probe for food. These interventions improve the biodiversity of the land without impacting on sheep farming.

Farmers have also helped find Curlew nests, enabling temporary electric fencing to be placed around them. Protecting the nests has boosted the proportion of eggs hatching to an average of 95% during the four years of Curlew LIFE – up from just 22% in 2020.

Curlew chicks are very vulnerable to predation from predators like foxes and Crows. The evidence shows that this is the predominant reason for Curlew chicks failing to reach fledging age, so predator management was also an important part of the conservation toolkit. 

Over the course of the four-year project, a record 202 Curlew chicks successfully fledged, and new pairs – likely to be returning juveniles – have also returned, which will hopefully boost the breeding population for future years. 

From our experience in the Antrim Hills and elsewhere, as well as from many other organisations’ efforts across the UK, we know what will work to save the UK’s Curlews. So, to mark World Curlew Day 2025, we are calling for the governments of all four UK countries to recognise the urgent need to act and support the Action Plan for Curlew.

The UK Action Plan for Curlew has been facilitated by Professor Des Thompson and Suzannah Rockett with significant input and support from Mary Colwell, Professor Ian Newton and David Stroud. Many thanks to all those who engaged with Plan's development including, Michael Clarke, Ian Bell, Rebecca Dickens, RSPB, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, British Trust for Ornithology, the Curlew Recovery Partnership, Gylfinir Cymru, Working for Waders, Curlew Action, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, NatureScot, Natural Resources Wales, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Northern Ireland and Natural England. The creation of the plan was made possible by funding from the CurlewLIFE project.