Over thirty curlew chicks are to be released back into the wild over the coming weeks, as part of a conservation project run by the Breeding Waders European Innovation Partnership (EIP).
Today, (Monday, July 22), Minister for Nature, Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan visited project staff in Carrick on Shannon, as they prepare the chicks for their release.
Minister Noonan said: “We have an enormous challenge ahead of us if we are to stave off the extinction of this beautiful bird.
“This Breeding Waders EIP presents a huge opportunity for us to ramp up our efforts, try new approaches, and expand our own knowledge of what can help them to breed and survive.
“Over the next couple of weeks, this year’s chicks will be released back into the wild in communities all around the country. For the first time, we’ll be able to track their progress and take care of them,” Minister Noonan said.
He also paid a “special tribute to the landowners, farmers and local communities involved with the project” and said it “would be an impossible challenge without their support”.
The Breeding Waders EIP is funded by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the Department for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
The project was established in response to a concerning decline in the numbers of breeding wader birds, including curlew, lapwing, redshank, snipe and oystercatcher amongst others.
Curlew are an endangered bird, as in Ireland, national data estimates that the curlew population has declined by 98% since the late eighties/early nineties. A 2016 report suggested that without intervention, the curlew would be extinct in ten years.
While there have been encouraging signs from the efforts of local communities over the past eight years, the EIP allows for a significant scaling up in conservation efforts targeting breeding waders such as the curlew.
One of the programme activities involves the use of ‘head starting’, where curlew eggs are collected from wild birds’ nests and then cared for and reared in special pens until they are ready to be released back into the wild.
Curlew chicks are very vulnerable to predators, so this practice helps to protect them at an early stage. Over the next two weeks, approximately thirty ‘headstarted’ chicks will be released back into their original habitats around the country.
Owen Murphy, project manager with the Breeding Waders EIP said: “This year we are GPS tagging a subset of our head-started chicks, so they can be continuously tracked for the next two-three years, giving us better data and insights into their movements, habits, integration back into the wild population and ultimately their survival.
“GPS tagging head-started waders, is a first in Ireland and we are hugely excited with the prospect of being able to monitor these birds on a daily basis.
“We’re delighted to be working with the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, who are delivering training to our team, enabling us to safely attach these GPS units to our birds.”
“Our efforts will hopefully help us understand how we can prevent the decline of the curlew, increase breeding productivity and greatly increase their chance of survival as an Irish breeding species into the future,” Murphy added.