habitat and species protection
Hope for the Grey Partridge? By Dr Dave Parish, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust
(Grey Partidge – Courtesy of Peter Thompson, GWCT)
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The humble Grey Partridge is often referred to as the barometer of the countryside because its status so often reflects that of many other farmland species. We’ve all heard of how recent agricultural policy has changed farmland and, in turn, driven many species into steep declines, but there is much that can be done to help Grey Partridges and their cousins, though it isn’t always easy to deliver that help on the ground. The classic story of how to manage farmland for the benefit of Grey Partridge is that of the threelegged stool, which comprises nesting habitat, brood-rearing cover and the legal reduction of certain predators to limit the negative impact they can have on breeding success. More recently, it has been shown that we probably need to add a fourth leg – winter cover crops, providing food and a safe-haven. All are usually needed: without any one, populations struggle to persist. Predator control is the most difficult to deliver in the absence of a professional, privatelyfunded gamekeeper, though some support is available in certain circumstances from the Scottish
Rural Development Programme (SRDP). The habitat measures are a little easier with SRDP options such as ‘grass strips’ and ‘wild bird seed for farmland birds’, though the regulations aren’t always helpful: those for grass strips require annual cutting – the perfect way to destroy good nesting habitat! This is not a problem unique to Scotland. Delivering appropriate habitat measures is often more problematic in other parts of Europe where agri-environment schemes may have other priorities like protecting water supplies and limiting soil erosion. This led the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) to approach the EU (the North Sea Region Interreg programme), with the idea of establishing demonstration sites in Scotland, England, Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands to implement and promote measures that best help Grey Partridge and other wildlife, and ultimately try to improve agri-environment schemes across northern Europe. The resulting PARTRIDGE project (Protecting the Areas Resources Through Researched Innovative Demonstration of Good Examples) was launched recently and is off to a flying start with habitat measures being introduced at all 10 demonstration sites (http:// northsearegion.eu/partridge/). We are aiming to convert 7 per cent of the land on the sites into beneficial habitats – the level necessary to produce stable or increasing populations – by introducing many of the habitats that GWCT has been researching for years, alongside a novel ‘all in one’ cover crop developed in Germany. This comprises species of annual, biennial and perennial plants (with the species varying between countries) sown in large blocks (>1ha) or wide strips (ideally at least 24m). In the year after sowing, half the crop is cut which provides excellent