Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vertebrate > bird > Bird |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Breeding) [VU(br)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Gallinula chloropus |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | (Linnaeus, 1758) |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Stanbury et al., 2021 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Long term significant decline Eng BBS (25 yr -25%, 10 yr -18%). Eng WeBS trends (25 yr -16%, 10 yr -16%). |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Declining especially in agricultural landscapes. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Restoring/creating ponds, especially in agricultural landscapes. |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Structured - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | Our understanding of the impacts of hunting on this species are constrained by the lack of a robust hunting bag reporting system (including data collection). |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Promote the restoration and/or creation of farm ponds with buffer vegetation across the agricultural landscape.
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Habitat creation
Duration: 6-10 years
Scale of Implementation: Not applicable
High priority sites:
Comments: Action is to promote habitat creation.
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.