Curlews

Curlew’s call for help

Once a familiar sight on Britain’s rivers and estuaries, the curlew is now in serious trouble. It’s been added to the UK Birds of Conservation Concern Red List, marking it as a species of highest conservation priority.

Although around 58,000 curlews still breed in the British Isles, a quarter of the global population – their numbers have halved in the UK over the past 30 years. That’s the fastest decline of curlews anywhere in the world.

Nesting near the runway

Curlews prefer to nest in wide-open landscapes with rough grass, low cover, and damp feeding areas nearby. In recent years, these conditions have drawn them to an unlikely home; military airfields across East Anglia.

But this has created a dangerous clash. Curlews pose a serious risk to aircraft safety, and until recently, the MOD routinely destroyed curlew eggs to prevent collisions. A single curlew could bring down a jet if sucked into its engine.

That’s where Pensthorpe stepped in. Through a pioneering partnership project, we helped offer a different, more hopeful solution.

How we’ve helped

Until 2024, Pensthorpe played a leading role in a pioneering curlew headstarting project. Precious eggs collected from military airfields across East Anglia, where they posed a danger to aircraft and would otherwise have been destroyed, were carefully transported to Pensthorpe.

There, we artificially incubated and monitored the eggs. Once hatched, the chicks were reared in specially designed pens, ringed for identification, and in some cases fitted with GPS tags and radio transmitters to track their movements post-release and support wider research.

After around four months, the young birds were released into carefully selected wild sites in west Norfolk, including Wild Ken Hill and the Sandringham Estate.

The project saw outstanding success. In 2021, for example, 87 of 106 retrieved eggs hatched, and 82 chicks survived to fledging – a remarkable result for a red-listed species.

In 2024, we proudly supported the transition of the project to a new, purpose-built site in Norfolk. We’ve handed over our expertise, data, and husbandry protocols to ensure this vital conservation work continues and grows.