Mountain-breeding dotterels could be first UK bird lost to climate change, RSPB warns as population falls 89% | Science, Climate & Tech News

One of the UK’s bird species could be lost to climate change, conservationists have warned, as their population has declined by almost 90%.

Mountain-breeding dotterels – small wading birds with rusty orange chests – migrate from northern Africa and southern Europe to mountainous regions in the UK every summer to breed, mainly in the Grampian Mountains in the northeastern Highlands of Scotland.

Monitoring has, however, shown that dotterels have suffered significant reductions in both their range and population sizes over the years.

According to a 2025 national survey from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), numbers have fallen 89% since observation began in 1988.

Their population has also declined since their last survey in 2011 by 74%, with the dotterel’s remaining numbers now restricted to the eastern and northern Highlands of Scotland.

While their global population is classed as “least concern” over their extinction risk on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, RSPB conservationists warn it could be the first time the UK has documented a species being driven towards extinction locally as a result of climate change.

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‘Disappearing before our very eyes’

“Dotterel are in steep decline, and we are seeing them disappearing before our very eyes,” Dr Leah Kelly, RSPB conservation scientist, said.

“The fact they need mountaintops to breed has made them particularly susceptible to habitat loss as climate change alters their montane environment.”

The RSPB survey notes that species which depend on mountainous habitats are particularly vulnerable to climate change, as hotter and drier temperatures push them higher and higher up in the landscape until they have nowhere left to go.

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During their observation, RSPB members looked for male dotterels, which unusually stayed on the nest to incubate the eggs, to estimate the size of the breeding population.

It found just 22 of the 217 sites surveyed contained any breeding males, with no breeding dotterels discovered in England, Wales or southern Scotland.

In total, 33 males were recorded in the survey. Conservationists estimated a total of 112 breeding males across the UK as a result.

The RSPB added that a similar rate of decline was seen in and out of “special protected areas” – which they said suggests the main cause of tumbling populations was the same across all mountain areas.

They also said climate change, in combination with overgrazing, has affected their preferred food of alpine vegetation and cranefly larvae.

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It comes as Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper signed a document which required the UK to officially ratify a landmark United Nations ocean protection treaty.

The government announced that it had signed the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement – or “High Seas Treaty” – which aims to help safeguard delicate ecosystems across international waters, which make up nearly two-thirds of the world’s ocean.