Predator Management Guidance

We recognise the significance of predators as one of several drivers of wader decline. With support from BASC Wildlife Fund, we have worked with farmers, gamekeepers and conservation organisations to develop a suite of practical guides to manage predation impact for waders, including the use of new non-lethal techniques such as nest-fencing and diversionary feeding. The guidance available to download below is just the start of a much wider effort to support, evaluate and gather data on predator management across the varied landscape of the UK. If you have comments or ideas for this work, please contact us!

FoxEs

When it comes to wader conservation, foxes are probably the most significant predator of wading birds…

Corvids

Corvids are adaptable & intelligent birds, but different species pose various levels of threat to waders…

Background to this Guidance

Wader conservation is becoming a major priority across our countryside. Following the massive collapse of iconic species like lapwings and curlews over the past thirty years, a great deal of work has focussed on understanding these declines in order to halt and reverse them. Much of this work has shown that the key issue relates to breeding success – put simply, not enough chicks are reared to adulthood each year.

When it comes to habitat requirements, waders can be picky and selective about breeding grounds. Where waders are already present, we can improve habitat quality for the birds in a bid to improve their productivity in farmland, grassland and moorland. Even where waders have gone from an area, certain species can be easy to attract back with a range of man-made wetland features and grazing management. For example, even after an absence of thirty or forty years, lapwings might appear from nowhere when suitable habitat is made available to them. On the other hand, birds like curlews are much harder to recover once they have been lost from an area.

There are many reasons why wading birds are unsuccessful during the breeding season. Agricultural activity, human disturbance and woodland expansion all degrade or threaten good wader habitats and make it less likely that birds will succeed. However, a driving force of decline is often predation by common birds and mammals like carrion crows, ravens, foxes and badgers. Predators are rarely the only cause of failure for wading birds, but addressing predation alongside habitat work often makes a valuable impact on conservation success. The specific relationship between wader species and predators varies enormously across the UK, and it’s valuable to gather information of your own area as you plan a programme of predator management.

 British waders nest from the lowest-lying shingle beaches of Dorset all the way to the highest mountain peaks of the Cairngorms Plateau. There is no “one-size-fits-all” answer to predation in the UK, and researchers always need information and data to build our understanding of complex relationships which depend upon multiple factors. We can identify the “main” predators of waders, but alongside foxes, crows and stoats, Working for Waders has gathered evidence of predation by hedgehogs, herons, rats and even sheep. Some of these can be written off as little more than “bad luck”, but others may represent significant long-standing issues which may need to be addressed. However, we should not be afraid to use the information we already have on predators and predation to make a start on clear-cut solutions.

This guidance focusses on predator management to improve wader breeding success. “Management” is an important word - it’s being used here instead of the more traditional idea of “Predator Control”, which is based upon lethal methods such as trapping and shooting. Predator Management recognises the importance of lethal control, but it also understands that certain important predator species (such as badgers and ravens) cannot be killed under current legislation. Work is underway to understand the impact of these species, but this guidance will also share best practice on non-lethal activities such as habitat management, nest fencing and diversionary feeding. It’s likely that the best results come from a mixture of lethal and non-lethal techniques – and here’s why this guidance attempts to strike a balance between both.

Placing judgements about existing legislation to one side, this guidance aims to provide wader conservationists with useful, practical information to improve wader productivity under legal conditions as they currently stand. 

These guidance documents have been compiled by Working for Waders, led by Patrick Laurie with funding from the BASC Wildlife Fund, and pulls information together from a number of sources which are noted throughout. We would like to acknowledge the support of Working for Waders partners: BASC, Bruce Cooper (land-use consultant), BTO, GWCT, Heather Trust, NatureScot, NFUS, Scottish Forestry and Scottish Land & Estates.