The curlew is Britain's most endangered breeding wading bird, declining at rates that threaten its continued breeding presence. Its welfare is linked to upland habitat management and predator pressure.
Curlew chicks and eggs lost to predation experience welfare harms that are inherent to ground-nesting ecology. The welfare tension in curlew conservation — between the welfare of individual foxes and corvids controlled to protect curlew nests, and the welfare of curlews and their chicks — is a recurring dilemma in conservation management. Curlew adults incubating eggs during cold, wet springs experience physiological stress from inclement weather. The population-level trajectory toward potential extinction from UK breeding lists represents a welfare emergency for a species with complex, long-lived social bonds. Climate change is creating increasingly unpredictable spring weather that compounds nest failure rates.