‘The signs are really promising’

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‘The signs are really promising’

After several years of efforts at controlling an invasive predator species, a rare shorebird called the curlew is making a comeback in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland, the BBC

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The issue these birds faced was stoats — an animal similar to a large weasel, which, in addition to hunting rabbits and smaller rodents, also eats birds and their eggs. It’s not entirely clear how stoats made their way to the islands; they may have been stowaways on cargo ships carrying hay or other imports, or they may have been introduced intentionally to kill rabbits.

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Regardless of the reasons, the ground-nesting curlews were easy prey for the invasive stoats, and in 2019, it appeared that the curlew population had decreased by half in a mere decade, with only 12 breeding pairs of the birds per square mile across the territory.

That was when the Orkney Native Wildlife Project leapt into action, beginning a project to humanely cull over 7,000 stoats in the six years since. It is believed to be the biggest predator cull conducted on an inhabited island, and it achieved results. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says the curlew population is up 21% in the archipelago (unlike the rest of Scotland and the *** where they’re still declining), and there are now 14.5 breeding pairs per square mile.

“It is fantastic to see that the hard work of the project team and many volunteers is starting to restore a positive future for vulnerable species in Orkney,” Anne McCall, director of RSPB Scotland,

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the BBC. “This is the first major population survey for waders since work started to remove stoats from Orkney and the signs are really promising, as we see declines for curlew reversed.”

The recovery of the curlew in Scotland is not to be taken for granted. The related slender-billed curlew was officially declared extinct in 2024 after many years without sightings. These birds exist in a precarious balance with their environments and the human population, and all our choices affect their chance of survival.

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