Kestrel populations have declined by around 50 percent in the UK since the 1990s, driven primarily by reduced availability of their small mammal prey in an increasingly intensive agricultural landscape.
Kestrel welfare at the individual level is most directly affected by prey availability — kestrels in areas with depleted vole populations must hunt longer and expend more energy for each successful capture, leading to weight loss and impaired breeding performance. In poor vole years, breeding success collapses and adults may abandon nest attempts, causing both reproductive welfare harm and accumulated stress. Secondary poisoning from rodenticides used near farmland affects individual kestrels through neurotoxic effects and can cause chronic sub-lethal effects on hunting performance before death. Landscape-scale provision of rough grassland and reduction of rodenticide use addresses both individual and population-level welfare simultaneously.