Reverse the Red: Together we can save species from extinction

The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN Red List) is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity. It provides a list of species most at risk of global extinction. Globally, the Red List includes over 46,300 species that are threatened with extinction, but it’s estimated that the number could be as high as 1 million.

However we know that together, we can pull species back from the brink. Reverse the Red Day on 7 February 2025 is an opportunity to show how groups across the globe – from conservation organisations, to governments, to communities – are working to save species and prevent extinctions.

Helping species in trouble has been at the heart of the RSPB since the very start. With so many species in need of help, we use criteria like the IUCN Red List and Birds of Conservation Concern in the UK to identify which species are in most urgent need of attention.

Saving species can be a long and varied journey, but our approach is consistent. It all starts with understanding why a species’ population is declining. When we know why, we can test ways to tackle the problem(s) and when we find a solution that works, we can put that into practice.

We can’t do this work alone. Alongside Birdlife International partners and a whole host of other partners, we’re working in the UK and globally to save birds and other wildlife.

This Reverse the Red Day, we’re shining a light on just a few of the many species that we are working together to save – and specifically some of the birds that are considered Globally Threatened or Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. There are of course many more and this is just a snapshot of our efforts.

IUCN Red List: Vulnerable
UK Birds of Conservation Concern: Red list

This much-loved seabird is famous for its brightly coloured bill and its ‘clown’ eye make-up. The UK is home to about 9% of Europe’s Puffins, which breed on islands and sea cliffs around our coasts. But their populations have been declining steeply.

One main driver is lack of food, particularly in the seas around their breeding sites. Puffins and their chicks mainly eat small fish like sandeels and Sprats, and young fish such as Herring and Cod. However, in some areas, these types of fish have become less abundant over time. 

RSPB scientific research is shedding light on the diet Puffins are managing to feed their chicks around the UK. Through our Puffarazzi project, members of the public sent us their photos of Puffins with food in their bills, helping us to learn more about which fish the birds rely on in different colonies to better understand causes behind Puffin population declines.

Fish populations are being affected by climate change and changes to patterns in ocean currents. Warming seas, as a result of climate change, are reducing the availability of sandeels to Puffins. Climate change is also causing more frequent storms, which can prevent Puffins from fishing, and heavy rainfall can flood their nesting burrows. Commerical fishing activity adds to these pressures. 

The RSPB advocates for better management of fishing to help Puffins around the UK become more resilient in the face of these threats and we were part of the successful campaign to stop sandeel fishing in the English North Sea and all Scottish waters. We’re now working to defend the ban, after it was challenged by the EU.   

Puffin eggs and chicks in burrows are also vulnerable to predators like rats. The RSPB carries out regular surveillance at Puffin colonies on islands, so that we can quickly respond if invasive predators arrive.

IUCN Red List: Critically Endangered

It’s no surprise if you haven’t heard of this bird, because it’s one of the rarest on Earth and is only found on one small remote island called Nightingale, way down in the South Atlantic Ocean. It’s part of the UK Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha, so the Wilkins’ Bunting is one of our very own amazing species.

It’s a very fussy eater – in fact, its bill has evolved to eat the fruit of one plant, Phylica arborea, which is the only native tree on the island. Sound familiar? It’s just like what happened with the finches on the Galapagos Islands, with their different bill shapes, which famously contributed to Charles Darwin’s ideas on evolution.

Relying on just one food source is risky, though. These Critically Endangered birds reached the brink of extinction after an invasive scale insect found its way to Nightingale, devastating the Phylica trees. When two severe storms hit the island in 2019, they destroyed around 80% of the weakened forest. It was thought Wilkins’ Bunting numbers had plummeted to fewer than 50 birds.

The RSPB and partners responded urgently, identifying a tiny wasp that preys on the scale insect. The wasps were flown from the UK to South Africa, followed by a week-long boat journey to Tristan da Cunha, where they were nurtured by the island’s Conservation Department and then released on Nightingale. The wasps got established over time, and the Phylica trees began to recover. A survey in February 2024 revealed numbers of Wilkins’ Bunting to be between 60 and 90 breeding pairs, now supported by their recovering forest.

The RSPB is supporting Tristan da Cunha’s Conservation Department to monitor the establishment of the wasps and the recovery of the Phylica. We are also helping them to review biosecurity among the islands in the Tristan da Cunha group, to make sure no other invasive species reach Nightingale.

Looking further ahead, in 2027 the RSPB will support a recount of the Wilkins’ Bunting population to track their recovery.

IUCN Red List: Vulnerable
UK Birds of Conservation Concern: Red list

Turtle Doves are the UK’s only long-distance migrant dove, coming here from Africa to breed in the spring and summer. They get their name from their distinctive ‘turrr turrr’ call rather than the striking tortoiseshell pattern on their wings. They’re smaller and more colourful than their familiar resident cousins, the Collared Dove.

Turtle Dove numbers in the UK have crashed by an estimated 99% since the late 1960s. The single most important factor in their decline was a loss of breeding season habitats that provide seed for the doves – for example, due to changes in agriculture.

Operation Turtle Dove, a partnership between Natural England, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust, Fair to Nature and the RSPB, is working with farmers, landowners, communities and volunteers to make sure there’s suitable habitat and food ready for the birds when they arrive in spring to breed. RSPB advisors are supporting farmers and land managers to provide seed plants and open ground for foraging, along with scrub and hedgerows for nesting and ponds for drinking water.

We’ve been focusing efforts on the main breeding areas in East Anglia and south-east England, but also with an eye to making neighbouring areas ‘Turtle Dove ready’ as well, so that the birds have great breeding areas to move into as their existing populations hopefully grow.

Until recently, hunting in France, Spain and Portugal was putting even more pressure on the Turtle Doves that breed in the UK. There is now a temporary ban on hunting them along their western European Flyway (a bird migration superhighway), thanks to an enormous collaborative effort from countries along the route, including years of science and conservation expertise from the RSPB. The ban was extended into its fourth year in 2024. After just the first two years of this ban, numbers across the western European population of Turtle Doves were up by 25%.

IUCN Red List: Endangered

Albatrosses are large seabirds that soar vast distances across the oceans. There are 22 species, 19 of which are found in the Southern Hemisphere, including the Grey-headed Albatross, named for its ashy-grey head.

It’s medium-sized for an albatross but still really big – its outstretched wings are over seven feet (two metres) from tip to tip. No hugging the coasts for this albatross – it spends its time in the open seas, eating mainly squid but also fish and crustaceans, mostly snapped up from just below the surface. Every other year, these albatrosses breed on islands in the southern oceans above Antarctica, which are governed by seven countries. The UK Overseas Territory of South Georgia is the largest colony, hosting about half of the breeding population.

Over the past century, numbers of Grey-headed Albatross have plummeted dramatically. At South Georgia, they’ve fallen by more than half since 1977 and have been declining by 5% a year in the last decade, which is far faster than any other albatross species. There are now only an estimated 250,000 adults of these birds left in the world.

The main reason for their decline is bycatch: attracted to the bait and fish around fishing boats, they are unintentionally killed by getting caught on longline hooks and colliding with trawl gear.

Through the RSPB’s Albatross Task Force, an international team of seabird bycatch mitigation instructors, we work with fisheries and governments to tackle this threat. Together with global partners, we test and develop solutions like bird-scaring lines to keep birds away from fishing boats, and influence government legislation to make this measure mandatory in some countries, saving large numbers of seabirds. And we’re now taking a similar approach with other fisheries with high numbers of seabird deaths to test other innovative measures. We’re also carrying out research on Grey-headed Albatrosses in an important Marine Protected Area in Chilean waters to help strengthen protections.

IUCN Red List: Near Threatened
UK Birds of Conservation Concern: Red list

Europe’s largest wading bird, the Curlew or Eurasion Curlew is famous for its long, downcurved bill and its evocative, bubbling song. They’re a familiar sight around our coasts in the winter and come inland to breed, mainly in the uplands but also on lowland farms. 

Around a quarter of the world’s Curlews breed in the UK, so this is a hugely important place for them. But they are in steep decline here. Since the mid 1990s, we’ve lost nearly half (48%) of our breeding Curlews. 

Too few Curlew chicks are surviving to the point when they are able to fly (fledging). Without enough young birds reaching adulthood, Curlew populations have been falling over time as the older birds die.

This is mainly due to changes over the years at their breeding grounds. Curlews tend to nest on farmland, and as agriculture has intensified over recent decades, more livestock, the move to silage over hay cultivation, and the draining of land have all taken their toll, meaning less suitable habitat for Curlews. They’ve also been facing more pressure from predation because of booming numbers of predators like Foxes and Hooded and Carrion Crows. Poorly planned tree planting in woodland blocks (such as with commercial forestry), abandonment of land and insensitive renewable development have meant even less space for Curlews.

Through our reserves are important for Curlews, by working at a landscape-scale in partnership with farmers and land managers, and through projects such as Curlew LIFE, we are working to restore some of the most important breeding areas for Curlews around the UK by improving habitat and protecting nests and chicks from predation. We are also campaigning for support for farmers through nature-friendly farming schemes and advocating for better protection of Curlew breeding areas and more sensitive tree planting and renewable development.

We have also brought together a wide range of partners to facilitate a new UK-wide species action plan for Curlews. We will collectively now use this to advocate for the measures needed to save Curlews from extinction as a breeding bird here. 

IUCN Red List: Vulnerable

You’ll have to travel a very long way to see this little bird, as it’s only found on one island, St Helena, in the South Atlantic, one of the UK Overseas Territories. It might remind you of the Ringed Plovers you’d see on a beach in the UK, the ones with the highway robber eye mask! It's locally known as the ‘Wirebird’, because of its long, thin legs.

It’s St Helena’s only surviving land bird – found nowhere else on Earth. Like some other plovers, it has a clever way of luring predators away from its eggs and chicks, by pretending to be an injured easy meal, flapping on the ground with its ‘broken’ wing. 

In the last population count, in January 2024, there were just 721 St Helena Plovers. Although that’s a small number, it’s a big increase from the 208 birds counted in 2006. The rise is thanks to efforts to restore habitat for them and reduce predation by invasive species like feral cats, rodents and Indian Myna birds. The RSPB supported the St Helena National Trust to work out why the plover numbers had crashed and then to put in place solutions.

The RSPB continues to work closely with the St Helena National Trust and is now a partner on a project funded by Darwin Plus, to improve St Helena’s grasslands for both people and wildlife, with the Wirebird at the heart of this. The RSPB is also helping to revise the action plan for this rare bird into the future, ranging from habitat improvement and controlling predators through to reducing the numbers of birds killed by traffic.

IUCN Red List: Critically Endangered

The White-rumped Vulture is one of four Asian vultures on the IUCN Red List described as ‘Critically Endangered’. The majority of White-rumped Vultures live in India, but this medium-sized vulture is also found from Pakistan across to Cambodia. 

They are named for the flash of white on their backs, and they also have a white collar and a striking white block on the underside of their wings. One other feature that makes them a bit different from their close relatives is that they have 12 tail feathers, instead of the usual 14. 

Asian vultures have suffered devastating declines in the past two decades, and there are now fewer than 10,000 White-rumped Vultures left. They were being poisoned by eating the carcasses of cattle that had been given a common anti-inflammatory and pain relief drug called diclofenac, which is toxic to vultures. Vultures also face a range of other threats – eating poisoned baits intended for mammals, being electrocuted or killed in collisions with power lines, nest destruction and food shortage.

The RSPB works in close partnership with our BirdLife partner in Nepal, Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN), on a project to aid the recovery of White-rumped Vultures and other Critically Endangered vulture species. RSPB and BCN, with support from the Nepal Government, have enabled the creation of the world’s first Vulture Safe Zone, an area considered to be free from the threat of toxic veterinary drugs used in cattle. Through long-term monitoring, research, awareness raising, and local and national advocacy, the severely depleted populations are now beginning to recover in Nepal. Together we are working towards delivering a second Vulture Safe Zone and will continue to advocate for an environment free from toxic chemicals, and other threats.

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