ECOS 33(2) 2012 ECOS 33(2) 2012

52 53

Lapwing futures – a plea for evidence-based policy Farmers and conservationists have a common cause in doing their utmost to halt and then reverse this seemingly relentless fall in farmland bird numbers. To do this conservation policy makers need to take a cool hard look at the real reasons for the decline.

PHILIP MERRICKS

The lapwing crashThe farming seasons have a ceaseless rhythm of routine. Haymaking and harvest is followed by the dominance of paperwork. This is a timeless annual cycle to which in recent years a new event has been added: the annual press release from conservation NGOs detailing yet another decline in farmland bird numbers. I have in front of me a desperately sad joint press statement from RSPB, BTO and JNCC dated 25 July 2012 and its headline reads “Lapwings hit new low – further declines in breeding waders revealed.”

A close study of the lapwing, the iconic farmland bird which has suffered one of the steepest declines, reveals that adult mortality has remained broadly constant. This is confirmed by Professor Ian Newton, former Chairman of RSPB and currently BTO Chairman, when he wrote to me recently: “The finding that makes me think that the British lapwing population as a whole has suffered a net reduction in breeding success is that an analysis of BTO ringing data in the 1990s showed no change in adult mortality over several decades, so declining numbers could only have been due to reduced reproduction. From this, it follows that much of the present habitat in lowland Britain must be acting as ‘sink’ in which reproduction is insufficient to offset the normal adult mortality”.

This ties in very closely with our own experience at Elmley National Nature Reserve in Kent, when for a four year period in the late 1990s we hosted a lapwing chick ringing project. During these years 695 lapwing chicks were ringed and some 12 years later there has been only one adult recovery.1 Normal lapwing recovery rates are approximately 0.85% which indicates that we might have anticipated around six recoveries. This indicates, in hindsight maybe, that at a time when our conservation management closely but somewhat naively followed the Defra and English Nature prescriptions, our breeding lapwing chicks were suffering large mortality between hatching and fledging.

Agri-environment flawsIt is becoming increasingly apparent that the lack of chick fledging success needs closer examination. Conservationists, scientists and policy makers appear to avoid this issue as it reveals a failure of conservation management policy for this aspect

though it is – may be easier than halting extinction’s tide in middle England, where we have already lost so much of our species diversity and where local politics does not recognise the plight of what little remains.21

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Mrs Margaret Merton for permission to use this previously unpublished picture of her husband holding Richard Henry, and also thank Mr Julian Fitter for contacting Mrs Merton on my behalf.

References and notes1. UK Wolf Conservation Trust. Original Source: Harting, J.E., (1880) British Animals Extinct Within Historic

Times By James Edmund Harting

2. Stolzenburg, W., (2011) Rat Island p.2.

3. Rat Island Op.cit. p. 147.

4. Bekoff, M & Pierce, J., (2009) Wild Justice. The Moral Lives of Animals. p. xi.

5. Ibid

6. Rat Island Op.cit. p.4.

7. Leakey, R. & Lewin, R., (1995) The Sixth Extinction

8. Hambler, C., Henderson, P.A., Speight, M.R., (2010) Extinction Rates, extinction-prone habitats, and indicator groups in Britain and at larger scales. Biological Conservation

9. Quoted by Hambler, C. and Speight, Martin R., (February 1995) Biodiversity Conservation in Britain: Science Replacing Tradition. British Wildlife 6 pp.137-147

10. The predicated increase in the UK population to 100M by the end of the century, much of the increase being in the south east, is an obvious factor.

11. Church Urban Fund (May 2012), Poverty in Numbers

12. www.home.co.uk/guides/sold_house_prices.htm?location=al5&month=01&year=2012

13. Smith, C., (2010) London: Garden City?

14. Leadbeater, S.R.B., (2010) ‘Do the Environmental Benefits of Gardens outweigh the need for Affordable Housing.’. The Ecologist. http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/other_comments/638940/do_the_environmental_benefits_of_gardens_outweigh_the_need_for_affordable_houses.html

15. Pointed out by Richard Bashford of the RSPB http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1665630

16. Daily Telegraph of 18th June 2012 quoting gardener David Domoney

17. An email of 15 July 2012 from a councillor inspecting the allotments is not untypical. That this email was copied to me is also not a coincidence. “In an East allotment it seems a lonely Roman snail has wandered all the way from Westfield to find a new home. Little did it realise that there are perils in an allotment site such as slug pellets. Of course we didn’t get a second opinion as to it’s [sic] true nationality. Perhaps the place is crawling with them but we never noticed before.”

18. Department for Communities and local government (2011), The Draft National Planning Policy Framework. p.5.

19. NPPF Op.cit. p.13.

20. NPPF Op.cit. p.48.

21. There will be exceptions to this argument.If,as reported by Richard Black, a coup creates the vacuum for indiscriminate hunting combined with deforestation on an island with a unique species such as Madagascar, then this creates a very difficult situation. However, in a sense Britain has already been through this extinction phase and what I am describing is how it is embarking on another. BBC News, Black, R. (13 July 2012) Lemurs Sliding Towards Extinction http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18825901

Dr Simon Leadbeater is a woodland owner and town councillor in Hertfordshire. simon.leadbeater@btinternet.com

ECOS 33(2) 2012 ECOS 33(2) 2012

54 55

exception that on the Elmley RSPB reserve the fieldworkers were accompanied by the RSPB warden, so that in effect there was extra monitoring manpower and effort on this area. All monitoring was carried out from 4WD vehicles, as this is considered much more effective and time-efficient than undertaking monitoring on foot and causes less disturbance.

The key difference between this lapwing chick monitoring programme and those carried out by RSPB and GWCT was that we commissioned the fieldworkers, whilst they were counting the 1177 breeding lapwing and the 837 fledged chicks, to assess the components (factors) of conservation management thought to be necessary to ensure the biologically required chick fledging success. The components that are included in HLS prescriptions are marked “HLS Yes” and those that are excluded are marked “HLS No”. All components were assessed as satisfactory (green), fair (amber) or poor (red). The results are given in the attached tables:

of agri-environment schemes. I am a great supporter of the principle and practice of agri-environment as it represents the best hope we have of protecting and enhancing our wildlife. By and large agri-environment has been a great success. But in just a few areas, for example farmland birds in general and breeding waders in particular, it is evident that agri-environment is failing to deliver the conservation outcomes to the extent we all hoped.

One reason for this failure appears to be that at present, the current Higher Level Schemes (HLS) have yet to fully address the crucial need for chick fledging success. The current HLS management requirements are to create, restore and maintain wet grassland for breeding waders. At present little is done to ensure that lapwing fledge the biologically necessary number of chicks, now generally accepted by a consensus of scientists to be approximately 0.7 per adult pair. To maintain a stable population each pair of adult lapwing need to fledge approximately two thirds of a chick each year. Any less than this and the population is in serious, if not terminal, decline.

Evidence and monitoringAs I have a great belief in the value of science, I have spent long hours in trawling through the published literature on breeding waders and gathered a collection of more than 70 specific articles. Extraordinarily, of these 70 papers, only one gives any facts and figures on chick productivity. This relates to a study carried out by eight RSPB scientists, who monitored 291 adult lapwing that fledged 83 chicks during the years 2003/4/5 and published their results in 2011.1 This study revealed that of the 25 breeding lapwing sites monitored during this period, only 2 produced the required number of 0.7 fledged chicks per adult pair. In other words 23 of the 25 sites were acting as population sinks. Even more depressingly 10 of the 25 sites raised no lapwing chicks at all.

Further investigation has revealed that the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) monitored 519 breeding lapwing which produced 236 fledged chicks in the years 2007/8/9/10/11, an average of 0.45 chicks per adult pair. This work has yet to be published, but is referred to in the GWCT Annual Review of Conservation Science.2 This concluded that “In the Avon Valley not enough (lapwing) chicks are produced each year and productivity has been too low in recent years to maintain a stable breeding population”. More damningly the report goes on to say “We found no statistical difference in lapwing chick productivity between fields managed under HLS and fields not entered into an agri-environment scheme.”

As we have responsibility for managing an NNR as a Natural England Approved Body, this means that research is a part of our statutory function. Hence with the support (attitudinal rather than financial) of Natural England we commissioned experienced, independent field workers to monitor lapwing and fledged chicks on four sites on the South Sheppey Marshes during the years 2010/11/12. The monitoring followed the excellent methodology devised by RSPB scientists1 which has now become the standard. In brief, this methodology involves five counts of adults and close-to-fledged chicks at exactly three-week intervals through the wader breeding season. There was the same intensity of monitoring on each of the four sites, with the

2010

2011

ECOS 33(2) 2012 ECOS 33(2) 2012

56 57

Conservation assessmentThe methodology for the assessment of the components (factors) of conservation management for Lapwing breeding productivity is set out below.

Grassland/Grazing before nestingSatisfactory: predominantly very short vegetation with some longer patches with tussocks producing a heterogeneous sward. Grazing with any type or class of herbivore capable of creating tight grazed conditions. No use of fertiliser, natural or artificial. No use of persistent anthelmintics as veterinary products for grazing livestock.

Poor: overlong vegetation or uniform homogeneous sward likely to have resulted from under-grazing.

Grassland/Grazing in nesting seasonSatisfactory: vegetation as above. Grazing carried out only by sedate suckler cows with or without calves at foot, gradually introduced into wader breeding areas in well controlled small numbers. No sheep or yearling cattle used. No use of fertiliser. No use of persistent anthelmintics.

Poor: under-grazed creating overlong grass sward or over-grazed by use of inappropriate livestock (sheep or yearling cattle) or too high a stocking density, creating risk of disturbance, nest abandonment or nest trampling.

Water provision before nestingSatisfactory: all rills, creeks, foot drains, wet patches and back-up reservoirs filled with water to field level.

Poor: low water levels in all above-listed wet features.

Water provision in breeding seasonSatisfactory: constant management effort made to transfer water by pumping from reservoir or other external sources to maintain, when necessary, wet features and wet margins throughout the fledging period.

Poor: little or no effort made to pump water to maintain wet features or no reservoir capacity.

Micro-topographySatisfactory: high density of natural or artificial rills, foot drains, creeks etc throughout the breeding wader areas creating a heterogeneous field surface that is capable of holding water throughout the breeding season and which will increase invertebrate rich water-mud margins within the field.

Poor: flat uniform fields that will not hold surface water for any period of time resulting in the site drying out rapidly during the breeding season.

Predator control before nestingSatisfactory: impact from predators much reduced through habitat manipulation, predator fencing in strategic areas, removal of perching posts and sustained effort taken to remove site specific, problem predator species using only legally approved methods.

Poor: little or ineffective attempt to reduce predator impact by failing to use above techniques.

Predator control in breeding seasonSatisfactory: as above with addition of selective use of individual nest protectors and the inclusion of corvid control.

Poor: as above.NEI

L BE

NN

ETT

2012

ECOS 33(2) 2012 ECOS 33(2) 2012

58 59

Book Reviews

THE OLD WAYS A journey on foot Robert Macfarlane Hamish Hamilton, 2012, 448 pages Hbk, £20, ISBN10: 0241143810

At first, I thought that this was a book conceived at a boozy literary dinner, the sort that seems to stimulate the conceptualisation of so many awful TV programmes featuring celebrity figures talking bollocks to camera in beautiful locations, missing the cultural gems of their surroundings in favour of jokes about farting donkeys and similar inanities. The Old Ways is as far away as

possible from such crudity. There is an idea to the book. It had meant real serious walking (and cycling, mountaineering and sailing) and uncut experiences. The distillate of all these romantic voyages is then blended with intellectual spices, literary essences and matured in a mash barrel of old socks from personal walking heroes. This is a fine 15 year-old single malt of a book. It is smooth but also has the component tones of the soils in which it was soaked, the sweetness of contemporary life and the odd twang of chalk, seaweed or Mesolithic mud to shock the palate with the unexpected.

Robert Macfarlane also carries the theme of homage to both his grandfather and the poet Edward Thomas which might be considered a distraction were it not so well crafted. I like the poetry of Thomas to the extent that I carry a printed copy of ‘Adlestrop’ in my wallet but I have so far never met anyone who could Top Trump this secret perversion until now.

There is also an undercurrent of the land artist Richard Long, for not only does the cover bear a Richard Long photograph but there is a feeling that this is the Long credo in prose rather than photographs, mud artworks and cartographic cutouts. There is much of Nature in this book from gneiss to wild garlic and avocets to black vultures and enough neat observation to stop a twitcher in their tracks to share notes. This is intellectual artwork. It is not a travelogue, nor a guidebook and it has no real practical use other than to remind us that we are soulful, bipedal animals and walking has always been our perfect means of making sense of our surroundings and ourselves.

I read the book whilst camping on a Scottish beach. I was taking my

ConclusionsFrom the three year (2010 – 2012) monitoring programme on the South Sheppey marshes, it is clear that suitable natural conditions for good lapwing chick productivity occurred only in 2010. It is apparent that for a relatively long-lived bird such as the lapwing, the natural reproductive strategy is to rely on good productivity in favourable years to enable populations to cope with unsuitable natural conditions in other years.

A number of conclusions can be drawn from this research:

First: it is necessary for each and every component (factor) of conservation management that determines reproductive success, to be in place to enable lapwing to produce a biologically viable number of chicks, in order to maintain a stable or increasing population on these sites.

Second: sites where management follows the current HLS breeding wader prescriptions are very unlikely, even in naturally good years, to produce sufficient fledged chicks to maintain stable populations.

Third: the linking of the assessment of components of conservation management on each individual site to the numbers of successfully fledged chicks, demonstrates that the current HLS prescriptions for breeding waders are creating ecological traps which inevitably lead to population sinks. Thus the HLS agri-environment scheme leads to the creation of excellent breeding wader habitat which attracts breeding birds prospecting for nesting sites. And then, due to HLS prescriptions placing little attention to all of the components of conservation management that ensure chick fledging success, productivity is too low to maintain stable populations.

All of this points to a final and inescapable conclusion. Until HLS agri-environment prescriptions are altered to embrace all components of management that determine the outcome of a biologically viable number of chicks, lapwing populations are condemned to continue to decline.

AcknowlegementsI am grateful to Rod Smith and Andy Mckee who undertook the survey work during the three breeding seasons of the research programme. Thanks also go to Steve Gordon, Elmley NNR manager. Finally, I am indebted to Professor Ian Newton FRS for his very full and constructive comments on a draft of this article.

References1. Bolton, M., Bamford, R., Blackburn, C., Cromarty, J., Eglington, S., Ratcliffe, N., Sharpe, F., Stanbury, A. &

Smart, J. 2011. Assessment of simple survey methods to determine breeding population size and productivity of a plover, the Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus. Wader Study Group Bulletin, 118: 141-152.

2. Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust Scientific Review pages 28-31– Declining Lowland Waders in the Avon Valley

Philip Merricks is a farmer and nature reserve manage on the South Sheppey and Romney Marshes. He was appointed MBE in 1999 for services to nature conservation. jmerricks@fwi.co.uk