Sir, – Losing 60% of our songbird population in one year would, by any measure, be a disaster, but the fact this catastrophic decline has happened slowly, over several decades, means that few people have noticed or even care. 

The tree sparrow has declined by a staggering 95%, the spotted flycatcher and starling by 89% each. 

The fact that the UK supports a billion-pound conservation industry suggests that we are concerned — but if that’s the case, why are we allowing the local and regional extinctions of some songbirds to threaten to turn into national extinctions over a mere two generations? 

Do we want to be condemned as the generation who passively permitted such a crash in biodiversity?

Predators and competitors are flourishing

On the plus side, there are plenty of birds which are doing very well – pigeons, crows, jackdaws, magpies, and some birds of prey, all of which either compete with or eat vulnerable songbirds. 

However, when you add to this the huge increases in other predators and scavengers, such as non-native domestic and feral cats, non-native grey squirrels, foxes and badgers, all of which also eat songbirds, their eggs and nestlings, the picture is not so rosy. 

To claim, as some do, that predators and prey naturally find their own balance is plain wishful thinking or disingenuous. 

These days, they happily consume food from rubbish dumps and road kill, while greater numbers of reared and released game-birds can help to sustain unnaturally high numbers of predators and scavengers at the expense of some of our more vulnerable species. 

As for the further claim that predators only take a doomed surplus – hasn’t it been noticed many of our songbird populations are in deficit?

Cats and sparrowhawks kill a third of songbirds annually

The more one looks at the numbers, the more bleak our songbirds’ future looks. Huge numbers of songbirds are taken by domestic and feral cats, estimated by The Mammal Society at 55m annually, with tens of millions more taken by sparrowhawks. 

Unlike cat depredations, sparrowhawk predation is entirely natural, but this overall rate of attrition, when combined with the number of songbirds that are gobbled up by other predators – such as magpies, crows, jackdaws, jays, non-native grey squirrels, foxes and badgers – appears unsustainable. 

Wildlife management is the key

Mankind is now the sole mammalian apex predator left, but we have gone soft — hooked on anthropomorphic TV, from Disney to the BBC’s Countryfile. 

Historically, we have managed the balance of our wildlife. But this subject has become taboo in the broadcast media. The vast majority of our largely urban population now can’t bear the thought of anything being killed.

Ecological balance – not bank balance

Much of the conservation community itself is now conflicted on the issue of predator control. Our declining wildlife is good for business, attracting huge sums in NGO memberships and tens of millions in legacies. 

Adopting a robust policy on controlling unnaturally abundant predators and scavengers, let alone destructive non-native invasive species could alienate much of this support.

Predator control is an unpalatable, no-go area for our politicians also, who are too easily intimidated by the animal rights lobby. 

The UK Government may have managed to direct £500m a year towards the 73% of farms now in agri-environment schemes via conservation measures, such as wildflower field margins, beetle banks and skylark plots, but the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) acknowledges that this has failed to deliver a nett benefit for all farmland songbirds. 

Why? Because creating a paradise for wildlife can also create a paradise for already unnaturally abundant middle-ranking predators and scavengers such as foxes and crows. 

Are we being misled?

Until now, the prevailing line has been that songbird decline is solely due to habitat loss and modern farming. But our broadleaved woodland has actually increased by a third since the Second World War, with total tree cover back to a level not seen since 1300. 

Meanwhile, our hedgerows are up 11% since 1990, reversing years of government-sponsored decline, yet songbird numbers still keep going down or flat-lining. 

Failure to address the unnatural proliferation of predatory and scavenging species means that such measures can only ever be partially successful.

We need to address all the drivers of decline, through a fully comprehensive approach, if we are ever to turn the fortunes of songbirds around.

Good science is vital

There is increasing scientific evidence that greater levels of predation reduce songbird populations and, conversely, that predator control can deliver large increases in threatened prey species. 

But, sadly, it is all too easy to design a study that is unable to detect an impact of predation, even if it does exist. On the other hand, it is not so easy to design and conduct a study which is capable of detecting an impact of predation. 

It is widely accepted that the best studies are predator removal experiments, but, if only one or two species are removed, it’s possible that others will take over. 

Another obstacle to research is the reluctance of licencing authorities, to grant experimental licences to control predators; and legal predator control itself is facing further calls for it to be banned or restricted.

We could still save our songbirds

Science alone will never be enough to restore our biodiversity but persuading the public that we must adopt a realistic and robust approach to managing our wildlife is becoming even more difficult. 

Yet in an era where everything seems to involve cost to the taxpayer, better wildlife management need not cost the earth — the restoration of red squirrels in Anglesey has inspired local volunteers to control non-native grey squirrels there and on the north-west Welsh mainland. 

Very soon too few of us will be left who can remember the magic of the full dawn chorus or will have the resolve to do anything about its loss. 

If we really want to restore our songbird populations then as well as continuing to restore and repair degraded habitat and mitigate the adverse effects of modern farming, we must wake up to the fact that control of some of our unnaturally abundant predator and scavenger species is necessary. 

Increasingly, public opinion, politicians, the broadcast media and some in the conservation community dare not face this uncomfortable truth. 

This cultural disconnect from the realities of wildlife management has become a scandal here in Scotland. 

We will be leaving a shameful legacy of impoverished biodiversity for our grandchildren if we continue to do nothing about it.

SongBird Survival is committed to commissioning vital, and high quality research into the issue. Details of our current and forthcoming research programme can be found at http://www.songbird-survival.org.uk/our-research.html 

Colin Strang Steel 
Trustee, 
Song Bird Survival.