Starlings have declined by 80% in the UK since the 1970s. Their extraordinary murmuration behaviour and social complexity make their welfare decline particularly significant.
Starlings that cannot find sufficient invertebrate prey during the critical chick-rearing period suffer nest failure — chicks that starve in the nest experience prolonged welfare harm. Adults that must travel increasingly far to find soil invertebrates expend more energy and have reduced body condition. Loss of roosting sites through building renovation creates disruption to the social roost formations that provide protection from predation. While starlings are not individually charismatic in the way that rare species are, the 80% decline represents tens of millions of individual welfare harms and the loss of one of the most complex social wildlife phenomena observable in Britain.