The influence of different aspects of grouse moorland management on nontarget bird assemblages

• Published in: Ecology and evolution 2019-10, Vol.9 (19), p.11089-11101
• Main Authors: Littlewood, Nick A., Mason, Tom H. E., Hughes, Martin, Jaques, Rob, Whittingham, Mark J., Willis, Stephen G.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Birds; Burning; Conservation; conservation conflict; curlew; Environmental protection; Field study; golden plover; Habitats; human‐wildlife conflict; Moorland; Nesting; Original Research; Predator control; Predators; red grouse; Shootings; snipe; Vegetation; Wildfowl; Wildlife; Wildlife conservation; Wildlife management; Willow; Wolves
• ISSN: 2045-7758; 2045-7758
• DOI: 10.1002/ece3.5613

Conflict between stakeholders with opposing interests can hamper biodiversity conservation. When conflicts become entrenched, evidence from applied ecology can reveal new ways forward for their management. In particular, where disagreement exists over the efficacy or ethics of management actions, research clarifying the uncertain impacts of management on wildlife can move debates forwards to conciliation. Here, we explore a case‐study of entrenched conflict where uncertainty exists over the impacts of multiple management actions: namely, moorlands managed for the shooting of red grouse (willow ptarmigan) Lagopus lagopus in the United Kingdom (UK). Debate over how UK moorlands should be managed is increasingly polarized. We evaluate, for the first time at a regional scale, the relative impacts of two major moorland management practices—predator control and heather burning—on nontarget bird species of conservation concern. Birds were surveyed on 18 estates across Northern England and Southeast Scotland. Sites ranged from intensively managed grouse moors to moorland sites with no management for grouse shooting. We hypothesised that both targeted predator control and burning regimes would enhance ground‐nesting wader numbers and, as a consequence of this, and of increased grouse numbers, nontarget avian predators should also be more abundant on heavily managed sites. There were positive associations between predator control and the abundance of the three most widespread species of ground‐nesting wader: strong effects for European golden plover Pluvialis apricaria and Eurasian curlew Numenius arquata and, less strongly, for common snipe Gallinago gallinago. These effects saturated at low levels of predator control. Evidence for effects of burning was much weaker. We found no evidence of enhanced numbers of nontarget predators on heavily managed sites. On upland sites in Northern England and southern Scotland, populations of some bird species of conservation concern, namely golden plover, curlew, and snipe, were driven more by increasing effort spent on legal predator control than by rotational heather burning. There was saturating effect of predator control, such that populations of these waders reached a plateau above which additional predator control effort added little benefit. Large predatory birds were not detected more on sites where legal predator control effort was high, despite higher availability of potential food resources.