Predator Management Guidance

At Working for Waders, we recognise the significance of predators as one of several drivers of wader decline. The picture is complex and it varies across the country, but it’s clear that predation is often the mechanism which prevents wading birds from breeding and producing youngsters successfully. We’ve developed our thinking along these lines following an evidence review and a position statement which was published with approval from many of our members in 2025 - you can view it here.

With support from BASC Wildlife Fund, we have worked with farmers, gamekeepers and conservation organisations to develop a suite of practical guides to manage predation impact for waders, including the use of new non-lethal techniques such as nest-fencing and diversionary feeding. The guidance available to download here is just the start of a much wider effort to support, evaluate and gather data on predator management across the varied landscape of the UK.

This guidance focusses on predator management to improve wader breeding success. “Management” is an important word - it’s being used here instead of the more traditional idea of “Predator Control”, which is based exclusively upon lethal methods such as trapping and shooting. Predator Management recognises the importance of lethal control, but it also understands that certain important predator species (such as badgers and ravens) cannot be killed under current legislation.

Work is underway to understand the impact of these species on waders (and even to discuss changes to the law), but this guidance will also share best practice on non-lethal activities such as nest fencing and diversionary feeding. It’s likely that the best results come from a mixture of lethal and non-lethal techniques, and that explains why these documents attempt to strike a balance between both.

Placing judgements about existing legislation to one side, this project aims to provide wader conservationists with useful, practical information to improve wader productivity under legal conditions as they currently stand.

Explore our work so far by following the LINK