Conservation Headlands: a practical combination of intensive cereal farming and conservation.
Abstract
The Game Conservancy Trust has been carrying out research in the cereal ecosystem since the mid-1930s when annual surveys of the breeding densities of the grey partridge (Perdix perdix) began. A nationwide decline occurred from 1952 onwards, from approximately twenty-five pairs/km2 to less than five pairs in the late 1980s; a decrease of over 80%. Declining populations have also been recorded in North America (USA and Canada) and both eastern and western Europe (Potts 1986).
In Britain the grey partridge is predominantly a species of the lowland arable landscape, especially cereal fields. The most important changes that have occurred on farmland coincidentally with the partridge decline have been the intensification of grain production, involving increasing field size (hedgerow removal), improved drainage, increased use of fertilizers, improved plant breeding and, especially, the increased use of pesticides. Since the 1950s, increases in both the numbers of pesticides used and increases in the areas of cereals sprayed have occurred (Sly 1986; Rands, Hudson & Sotherton 1988). As a result, much of the research effort of The Game Conservancy Trust has been directed at testing various hypotheses regarding the decline of wild grey partridges.