2 December 2017
A new conservation zone has been created to protect the turtle
dove, one of Britain's fastest-declining birds.
The zone is being set up in Maldon, Essex, to help the species
increase.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said in
the past 20 years, the UK had lost more than 94% of its breeding turtle doves.
In the new zone, farmers, businesses and conservation
organisations will work together to create the breeding and feeding habitats
the birds need.
More than half the UK's remaining turtle doves breed in East
Anglia, with "hotspots" in parts of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and
Cambridgeshire.
Loss of food from the countryside was behind the species'
decline, the RSPB said.
Turtle doves eat the fallen seeds of arable plants such as
fumitory and knotgrass that are usually thought of as weeds.
These foods had become more scarce with the increased use of
herbicides and the intensification of farming, the charity said.
As migrating birds, turtle doves also face threats and
pressures outside the UK as they cross the Sahara Desert to survive the winter
in Africa.
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