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"Songbirds numbers down. Predators up. So …. … if we want to hear the dawn chorus, we cannot avoid taking unpleasant action." Nick Forde, The Times, January 2011

What has really happened to our farmland birds? Their numbers have fallen by 53 percent over 40 years even though we are now throwing £1 billion a year into conservation. Is this still due to a lack of money or to Man’s destruction of the environment – or could it be because of a systemic failure?

There have been some notable successes, such as the large blue butterfly, water voles and some insects and flowers. Many farmland and other birds are doing very well with no help from us at all: crows, woodpigeon, wildfowl and most seabirds are flourishing. They benefit from mankind and they either have few predators or are themselves predators.  The main birds that need our help are ground-nesters, waders and most songbirds. Significantly the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has just demonstrated that the productivity of ground-nesting birds and waders can be boosted by a staggering 3400 per cent by carrying out predator control. The official reasons given for songbird decline are habitat loss and modern farming methods. These have undoubtedly had some effect. Yet this stance is becoming increasingly untenable. Population levels of all predators, such as cats, corvids (which include crows, jackdaws and magpies), raptors, grey squirrels, rats and foxes, are now at their highest levels since records began, many having more than doubled over 40 years.

More importantly new studies have shown that several songbird species have been suffering badly as a result of rising levels of predation. Population declines of the tree sparrow (down 89 per cent), bullfinch (down 56 per cent) and house sparrow (down 74 per cent) have all been blamed on the resurgence of the sparrowhawk in both rural and urban areas. It doesn’t need a scientist to note the frequency of the word “sparrow” here. This sort of scientific evidence is being ignored and quietly buried.

Laying the blame for songbird decline on habitat loss and intensive farming is misleading. Since the 1970s our habitat has actually been improving. Tens of thousands of kilometres of hedges have been planted and our broadleaved woodland cover has increased. Farmers are being paid £500 million a year to provide a paradise for wildlife. We should have seen a recovery in farmland birds, but this has not been happening. One reason is that we are producing a paradise for predators too. The numbers of songbirds taken by predators is truly colossal. Best estimates only exist for two predators: cats take more than 100 million songbirds and sparowhawks about 50 million. Yet books and papers about the loss of our birds never even mention the word predation. The subject is taboo in the conservation world. We are told that there is “little  evidence” that predation affects songbirds; but this view is based on only three or four papers claiming it as a localised problem or only affecting a couple of species.

Last year the University of Reading cast serious doubts on the credibility of all these types of observational studies in the first-ever review of such research, classifying their methodologies as of the very lowest quality. Even the RSPB admits that these papers are out of date. That no fully experimental field study on songbird predation has ever been carried out in the UK is a serious indictment of our failure in this area. Most people in conservation work recoil from the very thought of having to control predators. And how many people would want to leave their money to a conservation charity that goes round killing birds and animals? But we cannot opt out of managing our wildlife. Urban areas are becoming vast reservoirs of predators and pest species. Increasing mechanisation means farmers can do less to help.

The Government’s commitment to reverse the long-term decline in the number of farmland birds by 2020 stands no chance of success until the predation issue is recognised. However, there are no votes in predator control and the Government must take account of the large body of mainly urban opinion that fails to understand the need for the control or culling of any creature. Only irrefutable scientific evidence could change this. Add to this conservation becoming inextricably entwined with the world of entertainment and the media: relentlessly sentimental wildlife programming is very popular and the broadcasters have no intention of straying from this highly profitable narrative. None of us wants to control predators but at least, if forced into it, humans can be humane. Most threats to our wildlife are man-made and we ignore the predation issue at our peril. When the science finally catches up let us hope that it will not be too late for many species.

We do have a window of opportunity: the new Government, arguably more friendly towards the countryside than the previous one, is preparing a White paper on the environment for the spring. Most large conservation organisations are neither structurally nor culturally capable of dealing with the issue of rising levels of uncontrolled predation: the initiative must come from Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Unfortunately Defra relies on these same organisations for advice. However, we can do something immediately. We just need to insist that a fraction of the hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money allocated to agri-environment schemes and conservation charities is spent on high-quality, peer-reviewed research on the impact of rising levels of predation. This will contribute to a consensus and a clearer way forward to restore our farmland birds.

Nick Forde is a trustee of SongBird Survival

NEW CORVID REMOVAL STUDY
During 2010 a pilot study was carried out for us by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust to test the methodology to be used to assess the impact of corvids (Magpies and Crows) on the survival of fledged broods.

This pilot has clearly shown that the method used for this assessment worked well and we have therefore agreed to go ahead next year with a full study conducted on our behalf by the GWCT.

As many of you will know they have an extremely good reputation for first rate research work which has already shown the effect of predation on certain bird species. This continues our planned scientific research programme which we feel is so important to the future of SBS.

This work will of course cost money! So we are seeking as many donations as possible to cover this research work and will be launching a major fund raising exercise at the beginning of 2011

HELP WANTED FOR TURTLE DOVE RESEARCH
East Anglian farmers are being asked to help scientists work out why turtle doves are disappearing from the
countryside. Turtle dove populations have fallen across England and Wales by 88% since 1970.

In partnership with Natural England, the RSPB has begun a three-year project, with trial plots of seed-rich
crops being sown on farms across East Anglia from this autumn. Birds will be monitored and radio tagged as
part of the project.

The project is looking for 16 farms in East Anglia, which already have at least two pairs of nesting turtle
doves. Half will host 2-hectare (4.9-acre) trial plots and half will regularly monitor nests and feeding habits, as
well as radio tagging birds, with farmers compensated for the space taken out of production.

More information Email Dr Jenny Dunn at jenny.dunn@rspb.org.uk

RAT EXTERMINATION TO SAVE RARE BIRDS
Daily Telegraph, October 2010
The RSPB is to drop poison bait from helicopters on to a remote Pacific island in a £1.7 million project to exterminate the rat population and save rare birds.

Henderson Island, which is 3,000 miles from New Zealand but part of the UK, is home to more than 55 species found nowhere else in the world and is the only known nesting place of the endangered Henderson petrel.

Every year, rats eat 25,000 seabird chicks, threatening many species with extinction.

It should take just over two weeks to kill the 30,000 rats, which will be left to die in their burrows. The RSPB is making plans for the project to take place next year providing it can raise an additional £600,000 in
donations.

Tim Stowe, international director, said: “Non-native Pacific rats, which were introduced by Polynesian settlers, have been ravaging the island’s wildlife. Four of the island’s unique bird species have become extinct and the island’s remaining species are vulnerable to extinction unless we remove the rats".

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