Learning from Finland
Woodland expansion is an important driver of wader decline in many parts of the UK. As governments push to plant more trees in a bid to tackle the impact of climate change, wader habitats are being squeezed and fragmented by new forests across large areas of marginal farmland. The relationship between waders and woodland is complex, and while forest expansion has certainly driven declines of birds like curlews and lapwings in this country, the dynamic appears to be more stable elsewhere in Europe. Finland is often cited as a prime example to show how waders and woodland can co-exist, and land management in that country is often held up as an exemplar for the future of waders in Scotland.
Conservationists who support theories around rewilding often argue that where pristine peat bog habitats are available, birds will move in and use them. Further, they argue that ecosystems which have a full range of apex predators (including wolves and lynx) have no need for the kind of predator control carried out by human beings in the UK. Taken at face value, these ideas sound very sensible, but it’s important to understand the real situation as it looks on the ground. Joining a Curlew Action trip to Finland in May, Working for Waders’ Patrick Laurie travelled 1,500 miles east from his home in Galloway to learn more about waders in woodland.
Finland is an extremely afforested country, but only small pockets of old-growth forest remain. The majority of trees are a productive commercial mix of pine, spruce and birch which creates an amazing habitat for a range of woodland birds, including hazel grouse, capercaillie and nightjar. Curlews do not breed in Finnish woodland, but some of them do breed at comparatively low densities in bogs which are found in forested landscapes. Despite excellent work undertaken by Finnish ecologists, we only have a shady picture of the curlew’s breeding productivity in these habitats. The habitat quality looks wonderful, but there’s little evidence to prove how well these birds are actually doing. It’s also worth noting that there are several areas of Scotland with similar habitat which do not have breeding curlews – the issue seems to be more complicated than it looks at first glance.
Predation pressure is a major driver of decline for curlews in Scotland, but the picture in Finland appears to be very different indeed. Foxes, badgers and pine martens are all present (as well as invasive racoon dogs), but they do not seem to exert the same pressure on groundnesting birds during the breeding season. It’s tempting to imagine that these mesopredators have their populations controlled by apex predators like wolves and lynx, but there’s no evidence to show this. It’s doubtless true that some mesopredators are eaten by apex predators, but there are many other factors at play in Finland. After all, it’s an entirely different ecosystem and much of the country is under deep snow for six months of the year.
It’s possible that mesopredators are naturally less abundant in Finland than they are in the UK, and the consequent reduction in predation pressure is enough to allow Finnish curlews to breed in habitats which would not be viable here. In this way, their habitat choice is determined by predation pressure. Rather than disprove the value of predator control in the UK, the visit seemed to confirm its importance. At the same time, it’s clear that while the reintroduction of wolves and lynx to the UK would encourage a greater public engagement with the natural world, it’s not a serious way to deliver a viable level of control over mesopredator numbers.
It's also worth noting that while some curlews breed in pristine forest bog habitats in Finland, they’re very much an exception. Around 90% of Finnish curlews breed on farms in habitats we would recognise in the UK. They’re similarly vulnerable to agricultural intensification as our birds are, and without definite figures on breeding productivity, it's quite possible that their numbers are in slow decline. Predator control is carried out on many of these sites, and this includes the management of badger and pine marten numbers. While curlews are admired in Finland, they are rarely a focus for conservation work. Where predator control is carried out, curlews benefit from efforts to improve grouse numbers for shooting, and this provides a clear parallel with similar benefits to waders from gamekeepers in Scotland.
While it’s tempting to look for a “wilder” future for curlews in Finland, the picture is much more complicated and confusing than it seems at first sight. Finnish curlews are part of a very different ecosystem with challenges and opportunities which have few transferrable links to wader conservation in the UK. There are wider lessons to learn about how conservation work is carried out on the ground, but there is much more to this subject than a simple suggestion that we should be "more like Finland".
This article was written by Patrick Laurie on behalf of Working for Waders. The image shows a curlew on a peatland habitat near Ilomantsi, Eastern Finland 11/5/23, taken by Patrick Laurie.
To read the full Curlew Action trip report, see Mary Colwell’s blog HERE
Acknowledgements:
The Curlew Action team included Mary Colwell, Russell Wynn, and Ellen Bradley, accompanied by Patrick Laurie (Working for Waders, Scotland) and Barry O’Donoghue (National Parks and Wildlife Service, Ireland). We are grateful to Mikko Alhainen, Noora Huusari, Alicia Jarma, David Jarrett, Tarja and Martti Kettunen, Harri Kontkanen, Nina Mikander, and Tero Mustonen and Kaisu Mustonen for hosting and/or providing data and information during and after our visit. Finally, we are grateful to all Curlew Action supporters for providing funding to enable this fact-finding trip.