The nest area is fenced temporarily with strands of electric wire to deter mammalian predators such as foxes and badgers. One of our project partners, the Game and Wildife Conservation Trust, told us about a NABU project in Schleswig-Holstein where Natalie Meyer had trialled fences around curlew nests for the first time with success. Elsewhere, electric fencing had been used to protect colony breeders happy to nest close together, but curlew are territorial at nesting time and each individual nest requires a fence. Rappa electric fencing have supported the project by giving us a generous discount on the type of fencing used and supplying it promptly in time for the start of the nesting season.
Curlew Fact
The UK breeding curlew population has halved in the last 25 years. Locally the population has declined by 33% in 11 years, leaving about 40 breeding pairs.