The Eurasian curlew is one of the UKs most rapidly declining birds, with breeding populations facing threats from predation, habitat loss and disturbance that require urgent conservation intervention.
Curlew conservation involves genuine welfare trade-offs. Predation management, used to protect curlew nests and chicks, involves killing foxes, corvids and other predators — causing welfare harm to those individuals. The welfare case for predator management rests on the overall welfare benefit to curlew populations plus the conservation value of preventing further population decline. Curlew are long-lived birds with complex social structures whose individual welfare matters. Site management that creates the diverse wet grassland conditions curlews need for foraging and nesting is the most welfare-positive conservation approach, reducing predation pressure naturally by providing better habitat structure.