Home Range of the Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata) during the breeding season

The population of breeding Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata in Ireland has declined rapidly over the last 40 years from 3,500-5,000 breeding pairs in the 1980s to only an estimated 105 pairs remain of a three year tagging initiative have been completed, the output from which allows research into the ecological requirements of the curlew. Using the data from the tagged birds (14 breeding curlew and 11 non-breeding curlew), this thesis estimates home ranges for the whole breeding season of the curlew as well as home ranges broken down by breeding stage (pre-incubation, incubation, chick-rearing) together with estimating the home ranges of non-breeding birds. Home range is estimated using more recent and more sophisticated methods, autocorrelated Kernel Density Estimates (aKDE) at the 95% level, which account for the autocorrelation present in high resolution data. Also core areas within the home range are estimated during the incubation and chick-rearing stages using aKDE at the 50% level recognising the varying scale and time-frames of potential conservation initiatives. There is a wide range of home ranges both for breeding birds (0.7km2 to 46.5km2) over the total breeding season and non-breeding birds (28km2 to 1,135km2) excluding one bird that makes several trips to the UK. Core areas during incubation range from 0.05km2 to 2.45km2. These estimates will inform conservation programmes and wildlife managers about protected area sizes and influence conservation and land use policies, as well as providing valuable information for environmental assessments of proposed developments. The level of afforestation within the home range is examined, developing metrics that might influence Forestry Programmes and recommend that further habitat selection analysis is carried out using recently published high resolution land cover maps, a next step that will allow for a deeper understanding of home range variation.