Grassland bird species including lapwing, curlew, and yellow wagtail face severe declines from agricultural intensification, with individual welfare implications from reduced breeding success and habitat loss.
Grassland bird welfare involves the individual experience of reproductive failure and predation that occurs when agricultural management eliminates the habitat requirements of breeding birds. A lapwing pair that attempts to nest in a field cut for silage before chicks are mobile faces the traumatic disruption or death of their nest and chicks - a welfare event that affects individual birds even as it represents a conservation loss. The cumulative experience of repeated nest failures as habitat quality deteriorates affects individual birds through the stress of repeated unsuccessful breeding attempts. Better-targeted agri-environment schemes that compensate farmers for delayed cutting and field management supporting ground nesting birds have demonstrated clear welfare and conservation benefits.