Keeping predator numbers down may be last hope to save the ground-nesting birds – but critics say real problem is farming practices
Should we be organising mass culls of foxes and crows in order to save the plummeting numbers of curlews? That is the argument put forward by certain bird conservation groups.
The curlew, one of the most charismatic birds in the UK, with their curved beaks and distinctive call, has been disappearing from the countryside, declining by 60% in 25 years. It’s just one of a number of ground-nesting birds which are vanishing – research has found that they are 86% more likely to decline than birds with other nesting strategies.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/11/2025 - 08:07
09/11/2025 - 07:53
Fifteen people are dead and 100 missing as Indonesia reels from floods caused by extreme rainfall. Rescuers search for survivors after at least 112 neighbourhoods were submerged by rising rivers. Torrential rain began on Monday, causing flooding and landslides in Bali and East Nusa Tenggara province. As river levels returned to normal on Thursday, authorities worked to clear streets of mud and debris
Flash floods in Indonesia leave at least 15 people dead and 10 missing
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09/11/2025 - 05:00
Whether to kill one species to save another has split biologists, anglers and Indigenous communities in the Miramichi
Photographs by Brittany Crossman
Since the 19th century, Atlantic salmon in the Miramichi have lured politicians, celebrities and wealthy anglers from across North America and Europe to fishing camps along the river’s banks, its undammed branches once producing more of the fish than almost any other river on the continent. In 2010, the fishery was valued at C$16m (£8.6m) and provided hundreds of jobs.
Rip Cunningham has been travelling from the US state of Massachusetts to the Canadian province of New Brunswick to fish since the 1970s. When he first started, he would sit on the deck at the Black Brook Salmon Club, on one of the Miramachi’s tributaries, watching the water boil with the leaps and rolls of salmon.
Rip Cunningham has witnessed the decline of salmon numbers in the Miramichi River since the 1970s
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09/11/2025 - 04:58
Dale Vince urges ministers to ‘optimise’ resources in fossil fuel basin to help smooth transition to renewables
One of Britain’s leading green industrialists has called on the government to offer subsidies to North Sea oil companies to help support a “just transition” to renewables.
Dale Vince, a Labour donor, urged ministers to “optimise” the remaining resources of the declining oil basin as the UK reduces its reliance on fossil fuels. The party has promised to ban new North Sea oil and gas projects.
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09/11/2025 - 00:00
Lords amend planning bill to include protections for wild animals, including bird-safe glass and swift bricks
Hedgehog highways and bird-safe glass could become requirements for all new buildings as members of the House of Lords push through amendments to the government’s planning bill.
This may cause a headache for ministers, who have tried to avoid burdening developers with laws on nature measures such as “swift bricks”. The new Lords amendments include mandated provision for these nesting boxes, which campaigners say are crucial for the survival of the threatened species.
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09/10/2025 - 23:07
More attention needs to be given to rapidly evolving issue of contamination of waterways with ‘forever chemicals’, committee’s chair says
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Sydney Water did not perform “an appropriate level of due diligence” before claiming there were no known Pfas hotspots within its drinking water catchments, a state parliamentary committee has found.
The New South Wales upper house committee tabled its 16 findings and 32 recommendations on Thursday following an inquiry triggered by reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald that detected elevated levels of some “forever chemicals” in parts of Sydney’s drinking water catchment.
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09/10/2025 - 10:00
Study shows how individual fossil fuel companies are making previously impossible heatwaves happen and could have to pay compensation
Carbon emissions from the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies have been directly linked to dozens of deadly heatwaves for the first time, according to a new analysis. The research has been hailed as a “leap forward” in the legal battle to hold big oil accountable for the damages being caused by the climate crisis.
The research found that the emissions from any one of the 14 biggest companies were by themselves enough to cause more than 50 heatwaves that would otherwise have been virtually impossible. The study shows, in effect, that those emissions caused the heatwaves.
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09/10/2025 - 07:00
Colton Berens was looking forward to the added income from his farm, but armed with rightwing falsehoods, other Selby residents opposed the move
Like most of South Dakota, Walworth county is built on farming. To the east of Selby, the county seat, vast fields of soybeans and wheat grow between roads that run straight to the horizon. To the west, beyond the county line, the Standing Rock Indian reservation spreads across miles of rumpled green prairie studded with creamy erratics and dark clumps of trees.
Like many farming regions, Walworth’s deeply conservative population has been steadily declining and aging, from roughly 8,000 in the 1960s to 5,200 today. The grain elevator that towers over Main Street in Selby is among the busiest in the region, but most of the squat brick buildings in its shadow are weathered and lifeless.
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09/10/2025 - 04:00
‘Abrupt shift’ in policy since Trump took office will have major consequences for climate crisis, forecast says
A jump in greenhouse gas pollution in the US helped push global emissions higher in the first half of this year. This could be an omen of what’s to come, with Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda set to significantly slow down the emissions cuts required to avoid disastrous climate impacts, a new forecast has found.
The “most abrupt shift in energy and climate policy in recent memory” that has occurred since Trump re-entered the White House will have profound consequences for the global climate crisis by slowing the pace of US emissions cuts by as much as half the rate achieved over the past two decades, the Rhodium Group forecast states.
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09/10/2025 - 02:00
This summer, locals and tourists enjoyed new river-bathing sites. As global heating escalates, we need more of these ‘cool islands’
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After la rentrée, when adults and children alike across France head back to work and school after the seemingly endless summer holidays, you would be forgiven for thinking autumn is upon us. But, weather permitting, enthusiastic swimmers in Paris will be able to prolong that holiday feeling into September – by taking a dip in the River Seine.
For nearly 100,000 swimmers, one of the highlights of this summer in the city has been being able to take a splash in the cool river waters at one of the three free public bathing spots, made available this year for the first time in over a century.
Helen Massy-Beresford is a journalist based in Paris
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