Shooting and other direct persecution of Kites (and other raptors) are frequently reported but always now considered as an incidental and minor contribution to the decline of the species.Conversely, illegal poisoning, either indirect or even targeting raptors and scavengers like the Kite, are repeatedly reported from almost every country. Even in Great Britain at least 60 of the reintroduced birds have been found dead and intoxicated by a variety of pesticides and especially rodenticides.
In France, co-ordinated campaigns to eliminate rodents from pastures, using Bromadiolone, have resulted in hundreds of dead birds and mammals including, prominently, raptors and especially Red Kites. The still legal poisoning campaigns are continuing and even spreading geographically. In Spain several hundreds of poisoned Kites have been found dead and paralysed between 1990 and 2000 and, obviously, this may be only the tip of the iceberg.
However, the main general reason for the steady and widespread decline of the species, given its low capacity to sustain persecution or recover from local mortality events, is thought to be a global impoverishment of rural landscapes for this scavenger.
All reports received mention as a major concern the intensification of agricultural practices, the shift from polycultures to larger monocultures, the spread of winter cereals instead of stubble and the change from permanent grasslands to arable lands together with much heavier uses of fertilisers and pesticides.
The resulting lack of prey (rodents, carcasses...), shelter and breeding sites (hedges, isolated trees, woodlots, wetlands...) may be an important contributing factor to the decrease of a species already sensitive to disturbance and persecution. Wintering birds, almost throughout their European winter range, heavily and consistently rely on rubbish dumps as a food source. Yet more and more dumps are being closed every year.
Because of its temporary increase during the 1960s-1980s, the Red Kite was not included in the priority lists of threatened birds and therefore was not afforded special attention or conservation programmes. It would be appropriate to reconsider the current status of this species and it is urgent to investigate its situation and the underlying factors that may well soon return this charismatic bird to the precarious state it was in some decades ago.
It is now time for action, preferably on a European scale, or for co-ordinated measures within countries, possibly supported by EU funding
