Countryside Alliance - love the countryside

Organisations like the Countryside Alliance have a big job explaining the role of wildlife management and we can only do that if we have solid evidence. Work like the recently published Upland Predation Experiment carried out by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust with funding from the Uplands Appeal. The research shows conclusively that by controlling predators the breeding success of waders such as lapwing, curlew and golden plover increased by a factor of three, and overall numbers also increased significantly. By comparison, on land where there was no predator control, the breeding success was well below the level needed to sustain the population.

For nine years, scientists from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust have studied the effects of predator control on the breeding success of threatened moorland birds. The Upland Predation Experiment, which was undertaken on moorland in the North of England, is one of the longest running studies of its kind ever undertaken, and the results have just been published in the leading science publication, the Journal of Applied Ecology.

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart writes: The Moorlands Association this week released an Uplands Manifesto, which makes a number of important recommendations to the next Government about safeguarding our precious moorlands. Unsurprisingly it identifies shooting and related moorland management as the beating heart of English and Welsh uplands.