Farmland and grassland birds including lapwing, curlew and yellowhammer have undergone catastrophic population declines driven by agricultural intensification. Recovery requires targeted habitat management and farming practice change.
Population decline is a welfare issue for individual animals as well as a conservation concern. Birds in fragmented, deteriorated habitats struggle to find adequate food, nest successfully or raise young to independence. Curlews face particular welfare concerns: breeding pairs that repeatedly fail to raise young due to predation or habitat loss experience multiple cycles of nest-building, incubation and loss - a welfare cost that goes unmeasured. Individual bird welfare is embedded in habitat quality; the conservation goal of population recovery is simultaneously a welfare goal of enabling birds to live well and reproduce successfully.