Curlew should be seen as the 'panda of UK conservation', after Downing St summit hears of extinction fears

Christopher Hope, chief political correspondent

8 JULY 2019 • 8:00PM

The curlew should be seen as the "panda of UK conservation", ministers have said, after a 10 Downing Street summit heard that it will be extinct in some parts of the UK within 15 years.

The first ever 'curlew summit' at 10 Downing St on Monday called for urgent action to save the long-beaked bird after an alarming slump in numbers.

It recommended that walkers could be forced to keep their dogs on leads to protect nesting grounds while farmers should be helped in other ways not to harvest sileage.

There are about 68,000 breeding pairs of the hook-beaked bird in the UK but its population has almost halved since the mid-90s due to predators eating their young and a reduction in good-quality breeding...

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