With the closely-related Curlew already under threat in the UK, we look at what lessons can be learned.
Scientists from the RSPB, BirdLife International (UK), Naturalis Biodiversity Center (The Netherlands) and Natural History Museum, London have confirmed the likely extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew, a migratory shorebird last sighted in Morocco in 1995. This is the first known global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia.
Two species have become extinct from offshore islands in this region before, however, the Slender-billed Curlew is the first confirmed extinction of a mainland bird, indicating issues on a larger scale.
Extensive efforts have been made for decades to find evidence of the Slender-billed Curlew across its breeding and non-breeding ranges, but all have proven unsuccessful. Dr Alex Bond, Senior Curator in Charge of Birds at the Natural History Museum, has been part of the team tracing the fate of the bird. He explained:
“When the Slender-billed Curlew stopped returning to their main wintering site at Merja Zerga, Morocco, there was quite a lot of effort put in to try to locate them on breeding grounds. Several expeditions, hundreds of thousands of square kilometres searched. And all this has turned up, unfortunately, is nothing.”
Tara in Omsk, Russia was once home to the only ever recorded breeding Slender-billed Curlews. They raised their chicks on the bogs here between 1905-1925. It’s thought that this species would have once bred across the marsh areas of both snow forests and steppe woodlands.
This curlew, abundant through the 19th century, was perfectly adapted for life in these cold and arid conditions. Yet they were considered one of Europe, North Africa and West Asia’s rarest birds by the 20th century.
Due to a lack of records, little is confirmed about the Slender-billed Curlew’s behaviour. From the infrequent sightings of non-breeding birds, it’s presumed they would migrate south-west to southern Europe – and some across the Mediterranean – to escape Siberia’s harsh winters.
The causes of the Slender-billed Curlew’s decline may never be fully understood. But possible pressures included extensive drainage of their raised bog breeding grounds for agricultural use and a loss of coastal wetlands used for winter feeding. Hunting could have also played a part in accelerating the declines in an already reduced and fragmented population.
There could also have been impacts from pollution, disease, predation, and climate change, but the scale of these impacts is unknown.
Sadly, the Slender-billed Curlew is not the first of this family of birds to go extinct. The Eskimo Curlew, a shorebird which once nested in the tundra of in Canada, hasn’t been seen (with certainty) since 1963. It’s now presumed extinct.
The bubbling call of their relative, the Eurasian Curlew – more commonly known as simply Curlew –, can be heard during the breeding season in UK uplands and other grasslands and flocks can be seen across our estuaries through the winter months. Through spring, lucky birdwatchers might catch sight of a Whimbrel, a smaller member of the curlew family, as these birds head towards their arctic breeding grounds.
The Curlew is Near Threatened on the IUCN global and European Red Lists of Threatened Species and is on the UK’s Birds of Conservation Concern red list. The pressures it faces are similar to those of its now-extinct relatives. Many valuable breeding habitats – boggy uplands and wildflower meadows – have been lost due to changes in land use and the intensification of agriculture.
The extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew is a wake-up call for us to take action for its Eurasian cousin. The UK is home to 25% of breeding Curlews – we have the power, and a responsibility, to reverse its declines.
By supporting the RSPB, you’re supporting world-leading studies and research to help to save species, like the Curlew, from extinction.
This science leads our on-the-ground, landscape-scale conservation. Over the past five years, we’ve worked with partners and landowners to enhance breeding conditions for Curlews through the Curlew LIFE project. Meanwhile on our reserves, we’re managing habitat to ensure it stays suitable for Curlews, alongside restoring large areas of peat bog to benefit both wildlife and to fight climate change.
Your support means that we can lobby Government to make sure that nature-friendly farming is properly funded. We also continue to ask for designations to protect those critical breeding and wintering sites from development.
RSPB’s Principal Policy Officer, Nicola Crockford, added: “The importance of coastal wetland non-breeding areas and upland, grassland and wetland breeding grounds cannot be overestimated, and the threats they face worldwide, should not be ignored.
“This is why we need governments, donors and other stakeholders to secure the ecological networks required by these birds along their flyways, including through beneficial agri-environment schemes and an end to inappropriate afforestation in the nesting areas, and protected, sustainably managed and restored coastal wetlands adapted to the impacts of sea level rise and other climate change related events. It is possible to have all these things to the benefit of local human communities as well as the birds.”
