Back in August I was lucky enough to get an invite to the British Birdwatching Fair courtesy of BirdLife International’s Jim Lawrence.

It’s taken longer than either of us thought to get the interview written and formatted up (busy, busy, busy!), but it’s been worth the wait. Tim has provided truly up to date info on the curlew, and Nicola Crockford, the Chair of the Slender-billed Curlew Working Group (SBCWG), has added comments which have been incorporated into the finished article. We’ll be posting the interview tomorrow, but first of all how about a quick overview of the Slender-billed Curlew as an introduction…

Back in the early 1990s the Slender-billed Curlew had already gained something of an almost ‘mythical’ status amongst European birders, its situation often compared with the almost certainly extinct Eskimo Curlew Numenius borealis of North America. Once common (though not nearly as common or as widespread as its trans-atlantic cousin) it had severely declined, but there was one major difference between the two species: whereas no Eskimo Curlews had been seen for some years, small numbers of Slender-billeds were being regularly seen at a wintering site in Morocco - the huge coastal wetlands of Merja Zerga.

Map showing location (A) of Merja Zerga

Birders could still see a Slender-billed Curlew if they wanted to in other words - though they would have to travel to a country few people had visited to do so.

I never made that journey. Looking back now I wonder if the reason I didn’t was partly because knowing that a regular wintering site existed meant that I (and many of us who should have known better) thought that this beautiful bird wasn’t in quite as much trouble as it really was (shades of Saemangeum and the Spoon-billed Sandpiper perhaps?).

The truth was of course that there was absolutely no reason to be complacent.

Knowing where five, then three, Slender-billed Curlews wintered didn’t mean in any way whatsoever that the species was either safe or that Morocco would always be a ’safe bet’ for the species. The last Moroccan wintering birds were apparently shot in 1995, and the few photographs that exist of the species (and which are used here with the permission of the SBCWG) have taken on a haunting quality that (to me at least) are terribly moving.

How many are now left? Separating a Slender-billed Curlew from other curlews is not an easy task despite their small size: individuals members of shorebird populations can show tremendous variation in size, and seeing the critical features on a small brown bird stood in a heat haze is difficult. Add in the high chance that the observer will be shaking like a leaf as he/she contemplates the re-finding of an almost extinct bird, and it’s understandable that no-one is 100% sure how many - or whether any - still exist.

BirdLife International currently describes its status as: “No regular breeding, passage or wintering population is known, and the number of remaining individuals must be tiny. For these reasons the species qualifies as Critically Endangered”.

Under Range and Population the following information is given on the same website (where references are given):

Numenius tenuirostris has only been confirmed breeding near Tara, north of Omsk in Siberia, Russia, between 1909-1925. It migrates west-south-west from its presumed breeding grounds in Siberia through central and eastern Europe, predominantly Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and the former Yugoslavia to southern Europe, Greece, Italy, and Turkey, and North Africa, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. It has also been reported from Slovenia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Reports of birds wintering in Iran persist but require confirmation. Regarded as very common in the 19th century, it declined dramatically during the 20th century. Flocks of over 100 birds were recorded from Morocco as late as the 1960s and 1970s. However, between 1980 and 1990, there were only 103 records involving 316-326 birds, and from 1990-1999, this dropped to 74 records involving 148-152 birds, including a flock of 19 in Italy in 1995. Although there have been reports from Bulgaria, Ukraine and Uzbekistan of larger groups, most recent verified records have been of one to three birds, with the last confirmed record coming from Hungary in April 2001. In 1994, the population was estimated at only 50-270 individuals…

Map showing locations of all verified sightings since 1900

Threats on the breeding grounds are unknown. Within its potential breeding range, the taiga has been little modified, the forest-steppe partially cultivated and much of the steppe modified by agriculture. Habitat loss in the wintering grounds is of unknown importance. There has been extensive drainage of wetlands in the Mediterranean and North Africa and potentially important areas in Iraq. The conversion of European wetlands and central European steppes to arable farmland may have heavily impacted the species in depriving it of important habitats during migration.

Historically hunting was high, and may have been the key factor in its decline. Following the initial decline, breakdown of social behaviour patterns may have prevented recovery. Historically a gregarious species, smaller groups or individuals may have difficulty in locating suitable stop-over sites on migration. Individuals may join flocks of [Common Curlew] N. arquata, being led to unsuitable wintering habitat and rendered unlikely to find a mate.

‘Historically hunting was high, and may have been the key factor in its decline’. How many more times are we going to have to hear that I wonder (we’ll be looking in more detail at the hunting threats across the Slender-billed Curlew’s supposed range in our interview with Tim tomorrow, by the way)?

So what’s the search I referred to at the top of this page all about?

The Slender-billed Curlew Working Group, chaired by the RSPB’s Nicola Crockford, have re-invigorated the search to find out whether the species does indeed still exist. They have prepared identification sheets, collated a mass of data, and set up a panel which quickly reviews all possible records so that any conservation strategy can be implemented as quickly as possible. (Have a good look round www.slenderbilledcurlew.net for all the data available)

Much of the interview with Tim Cleeves I’ll be posting tomorrow looks at the work of the SBCWG so I won’t go into details here, but a quotation from Nicola Crockford writing on behalf of the SBCWG does sum up the ethos behind the Group very neatly:

“We want to ensure that the Slender-billed Curlew does not become the first extinct bird in this part of the world since the Great Auk Pinguinus impennis in June 1844 and the Canary Islands Oystercatcher Haematopus meadewaldoi in 1981. The worst-case scenario is that the Slender-billed Curlew is already extinct, but if we, in this affluent part of the world, cannot mount a really thorough search for a lost species and then take the necessary conservation action, then what hope is there for the other 45, mainly tropical, “lost” bird species in the world?”

What hope indeed…?

Photo copyright Arnoud B van den Berg

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This post on the Slender-billed Curlew has been written as part of our commitment to promoting the conservation of Critically Endangered/Endangered birds and to Birdlife International’s ‘Preventing Extinctions Programme‘, which we signed up to as Species Champions in January 2009.

Species Champions are ”a growing community of Companies, Institutions and Individuals who share our concerns and demonstrate their commitment to protecting the planet’s natural heritage by funding the work undertaken by our Species Guardians”.

There are different ‘levels’ of Species Champion (requiring different levels of financial commitment). Whilst we joined the PEP at a ‘lower level’ 10,000 Birds is now officially a Species Champion along with such conservation giants as Sir David Attenborough and the British Birdwatching Fair, conservation minded businesses like Swarovski Optik (who also sponsor 10,000 Birds of course), In Focus, and WildSounds (the Species Champions for the Spoon-billed Sandpiper), and a small number of unsung individuals like Dr. Urs-Peter Stäuble, Ed Keeble, and Peter Smith.

• For a full list of Species Champions please go to BirdLife Species Champions ‘Roll of Honour’.