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March 21, 2007
Help WWT save British breeding waders
This week, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) is launching a campaign to raise awareness of the plight of British wading birds due to a startling decline in their breeding habitat.
Black-tailed Godwit, copyright Stephen Round
British wading birds need wet grassland to live and breed, yet it is one of the fastest disappearing habitats in the UK. We have lost almost half our wet grasslands over the last century as a result of land drainage and agricultural intensification and, as a result, populations of breeding waders have fallen dramatically. Numbers of Snipe have dropped by a massive 61% across in the last 20 years, Curlew by 40% and Lapwing numbers have plummeted by 35%.
Population studies have also shown that land changes are forcing remaining waders onto nature reserves where effective management of their habitat is becoming increasingly important if we are to stop individual species from disappearing altogether. With such a high proportion of breeding waders concentrated in just a few sites, it is vital that these areas are protected and maintained.
WWT has begun a project to create new areas of wet grassland on its reserves and ensure that existing areas are expertly managed to encourage greater populations of these breeding waders. So far WWT has had some significant success. Leigh Marshall, Reserve Manager at WWT Welney Wetland Centre in Cambridgeshire, said: “Back in the 1970s, some 50 pairs of Black-tailed Godwit bred on the Ouse Washes, south of WWT Welney. Since then the population has steadily declined to almost nothing. Careful attention to water levels, grass management and cattle grazing has created ideal habitat at Welney itself. In 2006 there were four breeding pairs on site, and two successfully raised two young each.”
Work is continuing on WWT’s reserves at Arundel, London, Martin Mere, Slimbridge, Washington and Welney to ensure the right type of vegetation by allowing the right cattle to graze during non-breeding seasons; to carefully control water levels by installing specialist sluices; and to install effective measures to protect waders and their young from predators.
If wet grasslands continue to be lost, so will these unique wader species. Help WWT stop British wading birds disappearing forever.
Posted by Surfbirds at March 21, 2007 3:23 PM
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