Did you know that the grey partridge is not only the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s logo, but it is also a biodiversity indicator species?
Grey partridges face many of the same challenges as other farmland birds - a lack of insect-food for their chicks, little suitable nesting and winter cover, and increased predation pressure.
The grey partridge was once common in the British countryside, but it has suffered a dramatic 94% decline since the 1980s. Grey partridges have been on the UK’s Red List since its inception in 1996. The bird is now essentially gone from Northern Ireland, the entire western coast of Britain, except in Anglesey, and continues to disappear locally throughout the rest of its former UK range. It is five to midnight for the grey partridge!
Land managers need to renew their efforts for grey partridge conservation and the Trust needs to support them. We need your help for this major effort. It will be a marathon, not a sprint - but we do have one thing on our side. Grey partridges, given safe nesting sites and ample insect food for their chicks, can produce large coveys, recovering numbers quickly.
The Government will only reach its legally binding targets to recover farmland wildlife if the GWCT model for partridge recovery is rolled out across the countryside. The GWCT supports the conservation efforts of the farmers and wildlife managers who look after 70% of the UK’s landmass. That’s why, as a symbol of nature-friendly farming, the partridge is the perfect logo for our charity.
Grey partridge research, undertaken by the GWCT and others, points the way forward but needs constant monitoring and adjustment to changes in the arable environment. These reflect changes in climate, agronomy, and the opportunities provided by agri-environmental schemes - which provide the tools for most grey partridge conservation.
To halt and then recover this important farmland bird, scientists, and advisors from the GWCT, farmers and landowners, policy makers and influencers need to get together and work much harder to save this bird from further certain local and regional declines across the UK.