World Curlew Day 2026

21st April is World Curlew Day - and for those of us working in wetland and habitat surveying in Ireland, it's a day that carries real weight. Ireland was once filled with the curlew's unmistakable call and years ago, while surveying midland raised bogs in the late 1990s and early 2000s, members of our team would regularly encounter them. It became a familiar, cherished part of those days in the field, but sadly, that experience is now a rare and distant memory, as hearing or seeing a curlew on these same bogs is now an exception rather than the rule

Today, only around 100 breeding pairs remain - a collapse of 98% since the 1980s. Last year, a close relative, the slender-billed curlew, was officially declared extinct by the IUCN - a sobering reminder of what's at stake when conservation action comes too late.

The good news is that the Curlew Conservation Programme and the current Breeding Waders EIP Project are showing that targeted, evidence-based action can turn the tide. Habitat restoration, predator management, and sympathetic land use aren't just conservation ideals - they're what the science supports, and what the species needs right now.

At Wetlands Surveys Ireland, curlew habitat is something we encounter - and care about — both in our survey work across the country and through our administration of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine funded ACRES West Connacht CP Projects. Wetlands, wet grasslands, and upland margins don't just tick boxes on a survey form. They're the places where Ireland's most vulnerable birds are trying to hold on.

On hashtag#WorldCurlewDay, we're thinking about the landscapes that still carry that call — and the work that keeps them that way.