Pounds for Predators: Funding for predator control on arable farms

If we are to see our arable landscape full again of skylarks, grey partridges and lapwings we must give them the best chance to raise chicks. Legal predator control is key to this chance and farmers must be supported.

In the wake of a short-sighted ban on snares in Wales and a Scottish government proposal to do the same, it might seem fanciful to be calling for cash for predator control. I believe, however, that it is absolutely necessary if we are to restore biodiversity throughout the millions of hectares of arable land in the UK. Just arable, I hear some ask? Clearly there is work to be done, including predator control, across our many different landscapes, whether heather moorland or chalk streams or ancient Caledonian forest. For the purposes of this article, I will stick to arable which is the landscape I know best and perhaps our best opportunity to see fast and radical improvements. Pounds for Predators: Why funding for predator control is essential on arable farms.

Countryside Stewardship has been a fantastic scheme, providing financial incentives for farmers to look after and improve the environment with biodiversity improvement being a major objective. The take up has surged in recent years with around 32,000 individual agreements as of January 2023, a 94% increase from 2020. Funded by the taxpayer, CS has provided swathes of habitat for wildlife and perhaps none more obvious to the naked eye as the variety of arable options. These include payments for flower-rich margins (which provide nectar for pollinators as well as a key insect-rich area for the chicks of ground nesting birds like the grey partridge), hedgerow management and beetle banks and the obligatory winter bird mix which provides a key winter food source for many farmland birds as well as cover during the bare months.

Three Legged Stool

Those familiar with Dr Dick Potts and the GWCT’s work on grey partridges will be aware of the phrase ‘the three legged stool’. It describes the fundamentals of what grey partridges need to survive but can be applied to many other species. Dr Dick Potts said there are three basic requirements; a suitable habitat (for living and nesting), food throughout the lifecycle and reasonable freedom from predation. As with a real stool, if you remove one of these legs the system collapses. Now cast back to the examples in the previous paragraph or the number of other arable CS options and you will notice they are clearly designed around the first two legs which makes sense given the GWCT pioneered numerous elements of the schemes. Why not include the final leg?

*Good habitat for farmland birds and good hunting grounds for farmland predators*

The arable landscape has traditionally supported many charismatic species. Birds like the grey partridge, skylark, corn bunting and lapwing were once common throughout Britain but these can now be most easily found on the red list and as Biodiversity Action Plan species. Mammals that have declined include the brown hare and the harvest mouse. Prior to the Second World War, the arable landscape provided food for humans as well as habitat and food throughout the lifecycle for wildlife. Insects thrived on the weeds in the crop and spilt grain provided plenty of supplementary feed throughout the hungry winter months. Old fashioned hedge management and scruffy corners and field edges provided the rest. As human populations grew, chemical use became more widespread and the Common Agricultural Policy of the 1960s led to a significant increase in intensive agriculture. This was to the great detriment of farmland biodiversity. With efficient food production as important as ever and national food security right in the spotlight, humans have found that creating excellent field edge habitat (margins/beetle banks/conservation headlands) is an effective way of improving the balance on arable farms.

Unfair Advantage

There is, however, one serious flaw in this and that is the linear nature of arable farms and these ‘edge habitats’. There are numerous studies (see the references/further reading section below) that have shown higher predation rates in linear structures and field margins, particularly in ground nesting bird species. Ground based predators like foxes and stoats will make use of sterile strips and wheel tracks as traveling lanes while intelligent corvid species like crows and magpies will soon learn to follow the straight lines around fields to find their prey. By designing our arable land to be efficient for production, we have inadvertently created ideal hunting conditions for numerous predators. This soon leads to an imbalance and increased pressure on ground nesters, hares and harvest mice amongst others.

Thorny hedges can help with the aerial assault and increased margin width is shown to reduce predation but there is a limit to this before the farming becomes financially unworkable. The simple solution is the legal control of predators, particularly during the most vulnerable time of year: nesting season. A visit to any well-keepered arable shoot will show this, and the extraordinary work of the GWCT on the Allerton Project has proven it. Employing the ‘three legged stool’ approach they more than doubled songbird abundance in ten years at which point they stopped all predator control. A gradual decline followed, reducing songbird abundance to pre-project levels over eight years.

*Plenty of time and money goes into setting up trap stations like this*

Targeted Control

Gone (thankfully) are the days of indiscriminate poisoning with much more targeted techniques now employed. These include technical tunnel style traps, lamping with rifle and targeted humane cable restraints (the legal forms of which enable safe release if required). The traps are very expensive (over £30 a pop for some) and require many hours of digging and ground prep if they are to be used effectively, not to mention daily checking and regular maintenance and upkeep, likewise with the HCRs. Lamping is effective and very targeted but also time consuming, and takes place when most of us are comfy in our beds. All these hours and equipment cost money, and as with the CS margins they come at an opportunity cost of productive farming or other income generating activities. Farming is a famously low (financial) margin game and every penny and hour counts. Most farms are not in a position to employ a full time game keeper but imagine the difference if there was funding for a few nights of lamping per week during the key spring and early summer period, or a few traps that could be checked and managed by the farmer themself on their daily rounds. This is not about wiping out foxes or stoats or crows. It is about keeping the balance and allowing reasonable freedom from predation for some of our most vulnerable species.

Predator control is an emotive subject and, to the uninitiated, killing something for conservation might seem counterintuitive but it is plain and simple to those who live and breathe it. It is, of course, not the only issue and it is probably not even the major issue. Loss of nesting habitat, winter cover and lack of food sources have been severely damaging to our farmland biodiversity but with some species in truly dire straits every breeding pair counts. Grey squirrel and deer control is already funded for woodland management schemes and our most quoted bird conservation organisation, the RSPB, accept that lethal predator control is necessary, with hundreds if not thousands of predators killed annually on their reserves for the protection of ground nesting birds. In our productive arable areas we must strive for balance. A balance between quality food production and biodiversity would represent good value to the taxpayer as the main investor in Countryside Stewardship and other schemes. This balance is possible and has been proven so by the likes of the Allerton Project and the Peppering restoration project. However, without freedom from predation at nesting time some of our most charismatic species will be seen most easily on the red list, not on our farmland. Farmers need support, and soon.