Migratory birds falling through the conservation cracks

Ring Ouzel - one of the best-protected migratory birds in Europe. Photo by Francesco Ungaro.

New research published in Nature Communications highlights that Europe’s protected area network is failing to adequately safeguard migratory land birds throughout their annual cycles — but that targeted expansion could help reverse long-term declines.

The study, led by Jennifer Border and an international team including Fuller Lab’s Richard Fuller, combined weekly bird occurrence data from the EuroBirdPortal with state-of-the-art species distribution models to assess how well 30 African-Palearctic migrant species are protected across Europe. Crucially, the work accounted for the dynamic nature of migration, tracking birds’ distributions week-by-week and comparing them to policy targets for protected area coverage.

The results are sobering. Thirteen species were inadequately protected under the 2020 Convention on Biological Diversity target, and none met the more ambitious 2030 target. Farmland species fared especially poorly. Yet there was a silver lining: species with higher overlap with protected areas tended to show more positive population trends, even after controlling for migration distance, habitat, and body size.

By modelling the full annual cycle of these birds at high resolution, we found important mismatches between where and when birds need protection, and where protected areas currently exist. Our findings offer both a critique of current policy and a roadmap for better protecting these declining migrants.

The study provides the clearest evidence to date that expanding Europe’s protected area network—particularly with farmland and migration stopover sites in mind—could make a tangible difference for bird conservation.

📄 Border, J. A., Pearce-Higgins, J. W., Hewson, C. M., Howard, C., Stephens, P. A., Willis, S. G., Fuller, R. A., et al. (2025). Expanding protected area coverage for migratory birds could improve long-term population trends. Nature Communications, 16, 1813. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-57019-x