Quest launched to find Europe's rarest bird

Later today [Thursday 4th December, 2008], the RSPB, and other partners within BirdLife International, will launch a final quest to search for the last individuals of one of the world's rarest birds — the Slender-billed Curlew. Formerly this crow-sized wading bird used to be seen regularly across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Although the last confirmed sighting was in 1999, hope remains that a few individuals may be still clinging to existence. With no confirmed sighting this millennium, the Slender-billed Curlew is the rarest bird in Europe, North Africa or the Middle East.

Slender-billed Curlew, Merja Zerga, Morocco (Photo: Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.com))

The conservation organisations will issue their call to search for and find any remaining populations of Slender-billed Curlews at the Ninth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS COP 9), in Rome.

"Although the situation for Slender-billed Curlew does look gloomy, the fact that other species have 'risen from the dead' recently does fuel our optimism. We are encouraging people not to give up on this bird," said Nicola Crockford of the RSPB and chair of the Slender-billed Curlew working group. She added: "Additionally, this bird was known to inhabit remote areas — so it is just possible that small numbers of the bird may still be wintering in an isolated part of North Africa or the Middle East, or that some unknown nesting site may be discovered in the depths of Central Asia. But our quest is definitely a race against time."

Regarded as very common in the 19th century (for example, in some areas of the Mediterranean), it declined dramatically during the 20th. It migrated from its presumed breeding grounds in Central Asia, across central and eastern Europe to wintering grounds in North Africa and the Middle East. Flocks of over 100 birds were recorded from Morocco as late as the 1960s and 1970s. However, between 1980 and 1990 there were only 103 records, and from 1990–1999 this dropped to 74, with most recent verified records being of one to three birds.

In 1994, the population was estimated at only 50–270 individuals, but the paucity of recent confirmed records suggests it may now be lower than 50 birds. However, the Slender-billed Curlew is easily overlooked, challenging to identify and may use countries, such as Iraq and Iran, that have been relatively inaccessible to experienced birdwatchers in recent years.

The RSPB and BirdLife International hope that technological advances will assist with this quest. Satellite tags are now small enough for use on Slender-billed Curlews. If any can be found and caught then the sites used during the bird's migration could be determined. Additionally, scientific analysis of feather samples, from museum skins, may soon enable researchers to narrow down the search area for the breeding grounds and moult sites. The only nesting records date from 1909–1924 in the Tara area of the Omsk–Novosibirsk region in southwest Siberia.

"This is the last chance to find Slender-billed Curlew. If we lose this species, it will be the first extinction of a European bird since Canary Islands Oystercatcher in 1981", said Richard Grimmett, BirdLife's Head of Conservation. "We've launched The BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme to save the world's most threatened birds. For many species — such as Slender-billed Curlew — the first step is to confirm if they still survive, and then identify and protect the sites that they use."

The working group has developed a toolkit to help people identify and report Slender-billed Curlews in the field. This identification leaflet, a downloadable MP3 file of the call, a map of all recent sightings by season and other material to help birders know what to look for, and when and where to look for it, can be found on www.slenderbilledcurlew.net.