Ground nesting birds are 15 times more likely than other bird species to be on the decline across Europe, a new report has warned.

New data from the UCD School of Agriculture and the Spanish research institute, Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC), found ground-nesting birds were 86% more likely to suffer a population decline than birds with other nesting strategies.

Their paper highlights that current habitat management measures have been ineffective in reversing these widespread declines and that predator control may be required in the short term to help reverse this decline.

Dr Barry McMahon, lead author of the paper, said that measures from the Birds and Habitats Directive have not had an impact on ground-nesting birds.

“It seems likely that habitat restoration alone might not bring about the recovery of ground-nesting bird species,” he said.

“[Human] activities have shaped new agricultural landscapes and new predator communities, including foxes and crows, in the last 50 years, and with these changes there are new challenges to manage species that are struggling to deal with this new ecological reality.”

Analysis

The analysis took a look at national bird population trends from ten European countries, including Ireland and the UK.

Ground-nesting birds in agricultural habitats were also found to be 17.8 times more likely to experience a drop in their numbers than those birds that nest in other habitats.

Matching trends across Europe showed consistently that this probability of population decline was related to nesting strategy and breeding habitat.

The study expressed doubt that current legislation is sufficient to halt the widespread decline in ground-nesting birds.

“Even if some species may adapt to these novel ecosystems, possibly experiencing lower predation risk, our data exposes the fact that there is a widespread decline of in ground-nesting bird species across Europe and it is unlikely that a single policy instrument across the continent will effectively address this conservation challenge,” McMahon said.

At risk species

Most bird species in Europe classified as being at risk of various levels of extinction risk (Near Threatened, Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered) are ground-nesting species.

Among these is the Eurasian (or Common) Curlew, one of the most threatened species in Ireland and the only Irish bird on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.