Pintails are elegant dabbling ducks wintering on UK estuaries and wetlands, with welfare linked to undisturbed foraging habitat and food availability.
Pintail welfare during their UK winter stay depends on undisturbed estuary and wetland feeding habitats. Human disturbance causes repeated flushing from feeding areas, reducing net energy intake and increasing flight costs. Declining food availability due to reduced intertidal invertebrate density affects welfare of wintering birds. They are legal quarry for wildfowling, with individual welfare costs from wounding in addition to killing. Conservation of large undisturbed estuary complexes with no-shooting refuges provides the most welfare-positive winter habitat for this declining species.