Will you help us stop curlew retreating?
We don’t want the curlew to go the way of many of our much-loved birds, like the corncrake and the nightjar. They shouldn’t be consigned to a few remote places. That is why we are asking you to support this urgent appeal for funds.
It is estimated that there are just 300 pairs south of Birmingham, and these could disappear in just eight years. However, this isn’t just a problem facing the south. Breeding curlew have declined by 46% across the UK in just 25 years. The picture would be more widespread if curlew were not thriving on driven grouse moors.
Farmland conservation schemes have largely stabilised adult curlew numbers by halting further habitat loss.
The problem now is chick survival. The fate of the curlew is literally in the hands of farmers and gamekeepers - we need to get the right advice out there fast.
With your help, we will deliver the first steps in raising awareness of this critical situation.
A conservation problem with a solution
You may know and understand what needs to be done. The challenge is to educate and inform a wider audience and enable those who care about curlew to do all they can to save them.
With the support of our members, we have already been able to:
- Launch Action for Curlew – a UK-wide initiative locating breeding curlew sites
- Produce A Future for Curlew – an 8-page policy document for journalists, politicians and the public
- Brief politicians about curlew decline at the Westminster All-Party Parliamentary Group
- Inform the media, including articles in the sporting press and a letter in the Daily Telegraph
In the last month, over 600 of you have been in touch to tell us what the situation is for curlew near you. There is a clear desire for something to be done.
Nature reserves and other smaller curlew sites are failing to produce the number of curlew chicks needed to sustain a stable national population. This shows that we need to be working on a larger scale.
Your support, combined with the Trust’s reputation for providing practical solutions, puts us in a unique position to achieve that.
Please donate >
We will do everything we can to save the curlew
We are determined not to let the curlew vanish from whole swathes of our countryside. With your support, we can give those who want to take action the tools they need to achieve it.
You can help us to
- Provide practical advice to farmers, landowners and gamekeepers on the action they can take
- Explain to politicians why current conservation measures are failing
- Brief journalists on the need for decisive action for our declining curlew population
We want to get as many people as possible involved in curlew recovery. Curlew will only remain an everyday sight in the UK if those managing the land are given the power and support to help them.
Help us to take action now
£25 - could help us to get our practical guidelines in the hands of those on the ground who can bring about curlew recovery
£100 - could help us to highlight how current conservation policy is failing to give curlew the best chance of recovery by briefing journalists and politicians
£250 - helps us to get advisors out to curlew sites and assess what can be done to aid their recovery on the ground this year
We can’t afford to wait. Twenty years have passed since the first curlew nesting study was published in the UK. Since then, much more research has been undertaken, but the curlew population has continued to suffer.
We are proud that we undertake pioneering research, but the situation for curlew is urgent. With your support, we can act now and reverse the fortunes of this much-loved bird.
Please donate >