Study project aims to protect upland birds
Last updated 13:21, Thursday, 24 April 2008
CONSERVATIONISTS from around Britain met at Otterburn last Thursday to discuss findings that could hold the key to saving the country’s upland birds.
The number of lapwings and other waders are declining rapidly, but the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust believes this could be reversed.
Its scientists are now completing the largest study ever undertaken into how predation control – such as is exercised on grouse moors – could affect bird numbers and breeding habits.
And while this year’s data is yet to be collected, results gathered from the past seven years have left the scientists confident that limiting the number of predators like foxes, crows, stoats and weasels can have a significant effect in these areas.
The eight-year experiment has been conducted on land owned by the MoD, which, in light of the provisional results, is retaining the GWCT to continue managing parts of defence training estate at Otterburn.
Many conservation groups have also taken a keen interest, and it is hoped the findings will one day lead to landowners reassessing best practice.
The trust’s senior scientist at Otterburn Dr Kathy Fletcher said: “It is critically important that future conservation policy is underpinned by the most contemporary science.
“The findings of our long-standing research at Otterburn should help to guide future conservation management decisions.
“Our research clearly suggests that predator removal may improve the breeding success of at least some species of ground-nesting birds.
“However, we still need to analyse the data from this year before any firm conclusions are drawn.”
Britain’s moorland has a rich and diverse range of ground-nesting birds, but since the 1970s populations of waders like the golden plover, lapwing and curlew have declined – apart from on grouse moors where they have been found to breed in large numbers.
The GWCT’s researchers, therefore, sought to isolate the effects of predator control used by gamekeepers to note what effect this was having.
Four moorland study plots, totalling 48 square kilometres, were selected, each of which has similar topography and heather cover to grouse moors.
Two of the long-term plots remained under the same regime throughout - one had a full-time keeper and the other provided an unkeepered comparison.
The two remaining plots, meanwhile, switched between predator removal and no removal.
So far, the study has shown that double the number of red grouse and waders breed successfully on sites with predator removal.
On the long-term plots, 53 per cent of the 247 curlew, golden plover and lapwing pairs were successful, while just 28 per cent of the pairs fledged chicks without predator control.
The researchers also saw that the lapwing population became extinct in the absence of predator control but returned to breed successfully once predator control was reinstated on one of the switch plots.
Duncan Orr-Ewing from the RSPB said: “The effect of predator control on ground-nesting birds raises issues of interest to everybody – conservation trusts and also those people who are concerned about things like lapwing and black grouse population.
“It’s useful for us to keep up to date with what’s going on in this area.”
Conservation advisor with Natural England Andy McNaught also welcomed the findings so far, but said the major challenge would be extending the potential benefits beyond commercial grouse moors.
He said: “Obviously on commercial grouse moors, they employ game keepers to do the work year in, year out.
“But there are some quite big areas in Northumberland that aren’t managed by grouse moor keepers.
“The challenge is how do you introduce predator control in to those areas, and who pays for it?”
A final analysis of the project is to be completed later this year.
