Castlebar, Ireland
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The curlew. . .now a rare sight in MayoA SURVEY conducted in Mayo and Donegal earlier this year revealed the curlew, a wetland bird with a haunting call, has almost vanished from Ireland in just 20 years.
It represents one of the most dramatic declines ever recorded for a bird on the island.
From a breeding population estimated at 5,000 pairs in 1991, curlew numbers have dropped to fewer than 200 pairs today, which, if the estimates are correct, would represent a decline of more than 96 per cent.
It is feared the bird could be extinct within a decade.
Dr. Anita Donaghy of Birdwatch Ireland, who led the study of curlew numbers last spring, looked at 60 sites that previously held curlews in Donegal and Mayo.
She found that only six of them were occupied, with a total of only eight pairs, four in Mayo and four in Donegal.
Dr. Donaghy explained changes in land use were behind the dramatic decline.
Curlews nest in damp, rushy pastures and on open moorland, using their long, curved, bills to probe for food in soft and wet areas along ditches or in shallow pools, where their chicks can easily find insects to feed on.
But these areas, once common in Ireland, are disappearing with developments such as the commercial extraction of peat from bogs, the planting of forests, more intensive management of grasslands and even the construction of wind farms, Dr Donaghy said.
While there were no actual studies showing that wind farms had a negative effect, it was unlikely that curlews would breed in their vicinity, she said.