The corncrake has suffered catastrophic decline in the UK due to early silage cutting. Conservation management of hay meadows protects this cryptic bird and restores traditional farming welfare.
Corncrake decline from silage machinery represents one of agriculture's most dramatic individual welfare failures — adult birds nesting in fields and their chicks killed instantly by mowing equipment. Each nest destroyed eliminates an entire breeding attempt. The recovery of corncrake populations in areas with appropriate agri-environment management demonstrates that this welfare problem has a straightforward, affordable solution: changing when and how fields are cut.