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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.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.
Author(s): Littlewood NA, Mason THE, Hughes M, Jaques R, Whittingham MJ, Willis SG
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Ecology and Evolution
Year: 2019
Volume: 9
Issue: 19
Pages: 11089-11101
Print publication date: 01/10/2019
Online publication date: 26/09/2019
Acceptance date: 03/08/2019
Date deposited: 28/10/2019
ISSN (electronic): 2045-7758
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5613
DOI: 10.1002/ece3.5613
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