The corn bunting has declined by 90% in the UK since the 1970s. Its welfare depends on agricultural habitats that modern farming has largely eliminated.
Corn bunting welfare is a direct product of agricultural policy. The species evolved as a commensal of traditional mixed farming - it thrives where cereals are grown without intensive pesticide use, where winter stubbles are left, and where field margins provide nesting cover. Modern intensive arable farming eliminates each of these elements. Individual corn buntings that cannot find winter food in stubble fields enter the breeding season depleted; females whose nests fail repeatedly in crops managed without wildlife consideration fail to replace themselves in the population. The species' decline is an aggregate of individual welfare failures driven by collective land management decisions.