Drastic decline of the curlew

People are surprised to learn that curlews are in trouble; the much-loved birds are seen and heard, particularly along the coast, in winter., writes Richard Collins

Most of the ones here, however, are migrants from Britain and mainland Europe; the Irish breeding population has almost disappeared.

We had around 5,000 nests 30 years ago but a recent survey found that only 122 breeding pairs remain. That’s a 97% decline.

Nor is the problem confined to Ireland; curlews are in trouble elsewhere.

Organisers of the Curlew Appeal in Britain, say that numbers there have fallen by 60% since the 1970s.

In 2008, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature changed the Eurasian curlew’s conservation status from ‘least concern’ to ‘near threatened’.

However, now there’s some welcome news; the recently-established taskforce is ‘prioritising curlew locations’ and ‘developing a measure that works for the farmers and the birds’, according to Minister for Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Heather Humphreys

Our largest wader, with its evocative bubbling song, has mottled brown plumage and a very long downward-curving bill.

Probing for lugworms deep in the mud of estuaries, the bill has a sensitive, and flexible, tip.

A virtual limb, it functions like an elephant’s trunk.

The female’s bill is longer than her mate’s; rummaging at slightly different depths, the sexes don’t take the bite from each other’s mouths.

The nests are made on bogs and swampy fields.

Four of the eight species of curlew found worldwide are classified as ‘threatened’ by the union.

Two of the eight may already be extinct; the experts aren’t sure.

There’s an Irish record of one of them.

The carcass of an odd-looking wader was delivered to a Dublin poulterer’s shop in October 1870.

The bird, thought to have been shot in Sligo, was identified as an Eskimo curlew, a trans-Atlantic vagrant.

Up to then, this had been one of the commonest waders breeding in the tundra of Canada and Alaska.

The species played a small part in a pivotal historical development.

On October 7, 1492, Christopher Columbus’s crew spotted ‘immense flocks of birds’; after an anxious 65 days at sea, the sailors knew that land was near.

The birds were, almost certainly, Eskimo curlews migrating to South America; they had encountered the first of the European invaders who would go on to persecute them into extinction.

There has been no reliable record of an Eskimo curlew since 1963. Reports of sightings nowadays have Lough Ness monster status.

The union lists the species as ‘critically endangered, possibly extinct’.

The Sligo specimen should have gone to the National Museum; it was sold to a member of the public for sixpence.

Another species of curlew, the slender-billed, is also at the brink of extinction; there are about 50 individuals left.

Slightly smaller than our Eurasian one, it breeds in the valley of the River Ob, which flows from Siberia into the Arctic Ocean.

The slender-billed hasn’t been recorded in Ireland.

A bird, which turned up at Minsmere Suffolk in October 2004, was initially hailed as the first British record of the species.

Drawing twitchers from far and wide, its identity was much debated; it may have been a juvenile Eurasian curlew which resembled a slender-billed one.

Excessive hunting led to the demise of these two species.

About two million Eskimo curlews were shot each year in Canada and the US during the late 19th century.

Seldom encountering people in the remote wilderness where they nested, the birds had little fear of people and were easy to stalk.

The slender-billed, likewise, was an easy target in the trigger-happy Mediterranean countries where it wintered.

Like its Eskimo cousin, it has been shot to the verge of extinction.

Although still hunted in some countries, the Eurasian curlew’s problems stem from habitat destruction, intensive farming, afforestation and climate change.

The taskforce faces an immense challenge.