News

GROUSE MOOR MANAGEMENT SAVING WADERS

Thursday 11th March

The Moorland Association welcomes the results of the Otterburn Upland Predation Experiment published in the Journal of Applied Ecology and also The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust’s analysis of these results in its report Waders on the Fringe: Why nationally scarce waders flourish on grouse moors.

The conclusive findings of the nine year experiment – the longest of its kind ever run – are that:

• Curlew, golden plover and lapwing were 3.5 times as likely to raise a chick on an area of moorland with predator control typical of that used to manage a grouse moor, than an area without.

• Breeding numbers of waders increased significantly in years following predator control, but declined sharply when predator control had not taken place the previous year.

• Lapwing breeding population increased by 66% following a season where predators were controlled and declined by 36% after a season when they were not. The differences were also large for golden plover breeding populations (+ 36% after predator control, - 29% without) and similarly + 14% and – 17% for curlew which only start to breed when three years old.


The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust has used these results to analyse areas managed for grouse moors, their designations for their important and nationally declining wader populations, and compared them to other upland areas away from grouse moors. It concludes that:

• The concentration of moorland breeding waders in the North Pennines appears to be a direct result of grouse moor management including rotational [heather] burning and predator control by gamekeepers. This has led to its designation as a Special Protection Area (SPA) in the EU Natura 2000 programme and the responsibility to sustain these populations is being met by grouse moor managers.

• Overall some 74% of English upland SPAs designated for waders are managed as grouse moors

• Agri-environment schemes on their own, without predator control, seem unable to give rise to an abundance of breeding waders or even bring about significant improvement in sparse populations.

• On areas that do not benefit from predator control during the breeding season by grouse moor keepers, the breeding success of waders becomes too low to sustain a stable breeding population. If declines like these were to become widespread, local extinctions would occur and there is already evidence of this in the uplands of South West England, The Lake District and North Wales where grouse moor management does not occur.

Dr Steven Tapper, author of Waders on the Fringe concludes; “In conservation, we seem to lose more than we gain in spite of ever widening streams of tax payers’ money directed to it. The degree to which gamekeeping supports conservation has been over-looked for too long, but studies like this reveal just how significant moorland keepering is for birds like waders that share the same vulnerabilities as grouse.”

Said Edward Bromet, Chairman of The Moorland Association: “It is now irrefutable that grouse moor management is producing wildlife benefits way beyond simply sustaining Britain’s unique population of wild red grouse. The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust is a leading scientific authority in upland ecology and their advice to include predator control as part of agri-environment schemes in areas other than grouse moors reinforces our own advice to Westminster last month.”