New publication indicates devastating extinction of the Slender-Billed Curlew

Scientists have today published an objective analysis that indicates the extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew, a migratory shorebird that once bred in western Siberia and wintered around the Mediterranean. It was last unequivocally seen in north Morocco in 1995. This is the first known global bird extinction from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia. The IUCN Red List currently recognises 164 bird to have become extinct since 1500, from more than 11,000 species that have had their conservation status assessed by BirdLife International, the global Red List Authority for birds. 

The publication was a collaboration between the RSPB, BirdLife International, Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Natural History Museum.  

Header Image: Slender billed Curlew In Morocco © Chris Gomersall, rspbimages.com

Nicola Crockford, Principal Policy Officer for the RSPB said: “This is one of the most fundamentally devastating stories to come out of nature conservation in a century and gets to the very heart of why the RSPB and BirdLife Partnership are doing what we do; that is, ultimately, to prevent extinction of species. This is the first known global extinction of a bird from mainland Europe, North Africa and West Asia. This has happened in our lifetimes. How can we expect countries beyond Europe to step up for their species when our comparatively wealthy countries have failed?”  

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, the loss of coastal wetlands used for winter feeding, and hunting, especially latterly, of an already reduced, fragmented and declining population. There could have been impacts from pollution, disease, predation, and climate change, but the scale of these impacts is unknown. 

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 curlew. He said, “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.” 

Dr Bond continues, “As climate change continues, this is going to be the status quo. Things are not getting better for birds. Tackling climate change, habitat destruction and pollution is the best chance we’ve got at protecting them, at home and abroad.” 

This news follows the recent announcement that 16 other migratory shorebird species have just been uplisted to higher threat categories on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, owing to population declines. 

Alex Berryman, Red List Officer at BirdLife International, and a co-author of the study, said; “The devasting loss of the Slender-billed Curlew sends a warning that no birds are immune from the threat of extinction. More than 150 bird species have become globally extinct since 1500. Invasive species have often been the culprit, with 90% of bird extinctions impacting island species. However, while the wave of island extinctions may be slowing, the rate of continental extinctions is increasing. This is a result of habitat destruction and degradation, overexploitation and other threats. Urgent conservation action is desperately needed to save birds; without it we must be braced for a much larger extinction wave washing over the continents.” 

Nicola Crockford concluded “Migratory birds connect nations.  Efforts by some countries to conserve a species can be undermined by damaging actions in other countries which share the same migratory species. Just as carbon in the atmosphere is a measure of international efforts to combat climate change, the status of migratory species is an indicator of the success of international efforts to conserve biodiversity.  The extinction of the Slender-billed Curlew is as much a clarion call for greatly enhanced action for nature as the floods, fires and droughts devastating the planet are for action to combat climate change.”