Press Reports
Predation & Biodiversity
SBS in print
SongBird Survival article as printed in the Scottish Countryside Alliance summer 2007 newsletter (Issue No 15):
SongBird Survival, a charity registered in England, has recently merged with Scottish based charity “Save Our Songbirds”, based at Mellerstain, Berwickshire.
So here we have an example of devolution in reverse!
Birds do not recognise different parliaments, regional assemblies or borders. Their interest is in safety, food and reproduction.
The combined charity can claim growing membership in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as in England.
Predation is one of the critical issues that SongBird Survival is determined to put up on the political agenda.
The recent Scottish Executive consultation into the use of Larsen traps by ordinary folk, who are dismayed by the damage magpies do in gardens and urban areas, would seem to indicate a change in the law is being considered; to restrict the use of Larsen traps to ‘professional’ land managers. This would be a disaster as Magpies and other Corvids are causing ever-more damage to nesting birds as most gardeners are well aware.
SongBird Survival and its members have strenuously objected to these restrictions on what is a humane and efficient means of Corvid control. Countryside Alliance members will doubtless share this view.
That raptors have captured the headlines in recent years is indisputable. Many bird-watchers are in thrall to them. Since their recovery from the days when DDT and other noxious chemicals were withdrawn from use, raptors have been at the receiving end of something approaching adulation. The Wildlife and Countryside Acts have provided them with full protection. Their population levels in the UK are now very healthy. Sparrowhawks have more than doubled their numbers to 40,000 pairs plus another 20-30,000 unmated juveniles; 400 pairs of Golden Eagles in Scotland; 100 pairs of peregrines now reside in the Lake district alone – virtually the maximum number that area can support. They even nest on the south coast oil refineries and cathedrals. All in all the picture is of raptors (including most owl species) doing very well.
The bird-loving public have responded to Raptors with enthusiasm, but without possibly thinking through the consequences. Many people fail to appreciate these farther pressures exerted on prey species of songbirds, waders, game birds and some seabirds, and that an explosion of raptor numbers has coincided with a huge increase in mammalian predators; grey squirrels (which raid nests), foxes, feral/domestic cats, rats, stoats, even badgers and pine-martens. The well known crow family predators; magpies, jays, carrion crows, are multiplying in both the countryside and urban areas. At the receiving end are much loved songbirds, both resident and summer breeding migrants, and other ground-nesting birds; the lesser redpoll down 91%, tree sparrow down 97%, songthrush down 51%, skylark down 59%, corn bunting down 84%, even the starling down 82%. Wader chicks take a hammering on many wetland and moorland situations as is well documented.
These are extraordinary figures, and with farmers now putting millions of acres into set-aside, new plantings and with CAP reform actively supporting habitat management, it is inevitable that the spotlight has to be directed at the effects of our burgeoning population of predators. The mainstream conservation agencies and NGO’s have not wanted to grasp this particular nettle. They will not accept (for ideological reasons) that predation is a huge factor in the disastrous slump in songbird numbers. Landowners, and especially gamekeepers and shooting people, know perfectly well what is going on. But the weight of propaganda pushed out by organisations purportedly set up to enhance biodiversity continues to deny the undeniable. Predation levels are often out of control.
Buzzard populations have increased by 414%! Scotland is particularly seeing more of these graceful raptors but could their prey species alter as rabbits and carrion fail to keep pace with their expansion.
Purists will talk of the ‘iron law’, whereby nature always finds its own level between prey and predator. That is fine in places like the Serengeti. In the British Isles we have had hundreds of years of intense land management; farming, grazing, commercial forestry, urban development, industrialisation, pollution – with over 60million people crammed onto small islands, 70% of which is cultivated. The ‘iron law’ is a fantasy as far as it refers to our managed environment.
The British Government has placed bird populations as an indicator for ‘quality of life’. Fair enough, but if one sector of the bird population threatens the very existence of several others, and if the government at the same time, sets BAP targets for the recovery of some vulnerable species, we seem to be in a vicious circle of bio-decline, not diversity. There are keepered shooting estates which, historically, have been a haven for one BAP species, the Grey Partridge, which are now so inundated with raptors that the grey partridge populations continue nose-diving. The problems on Britain’s heather moors are well-known. Langholm Moor, and the way in which raptors have destroyed it as a viable grouse shoot, and themselves in the process as resident breeders is the iconic lesson which, remains unlearnt by those who should know better. There is talk of a new experiment. Let us hope that it will be run based on sound science and correct interpretation.
So what about the future? Legislation currently leaves us in a straight jacket, and unless licenced control of some raptors is allowed, the position will get worse. There are only about 4,500 gamekeepers in the UK. Surely they should be re-badged as ‘wildlife wardens’. They are the true custodians of bio-diversity in the farmed environment. It is time that their role was appreciated far beyond their role as gamekeepers.
The grey squirrel needs a national campaign of control – to save the red squirrel, and to protect nesting songbirds. Sparrowhawk populations need particular attention and some careful culling under licence. Agri-management schemes should include prescriptions for farmers to control magpies and other corvids, even ravens in some areas. And badgers have to be considered as predators as well as scavengers. Their exploding population across the UK is a real cause for concern; quite apart from their role as TB carriers. And Pine-Martens are increasing throughout the highlands. How that squares with Black Grouse and Capercaillie conservation remains to be seen.
We need a national re-think on the way we manage our predator species. Not to eradicate indigenous species, but offer due research and investigation and manage them in the interests of biodiversity.
Countryside Alliance members may wish to join this active and determined body of bird-lovers who are not only campaigning but are commissioning research projects with independent academic institutions to prove that vulnerable prey species are threatened as never before – possibly to the point of no return – and uncontrolled predation is one of the major reasons.
For further information visit www.songbird-survival.org.uk e-mail: dawn-chorus@songbird-survival.org.uk or tel: 01379 641715. Songbird survival will be present for the first time at this year's GC Scottish Fair at Scone.
Editors note
The Scottish Countryside Alliance is fully supportive of this active and determined body of bird-lovers who are not only campaigning but are commissioning research projects with independent academic institutions to prove that vulnerable prey species are threatened as never before - possibly to the point of no return - and that uncontrolled predation is one of the major reasons.
Date Added: August 14th 2007