GWCT News Blog

While we welcome the BBC highlighting the decline of grey partridge in Britain sadly the reporters have their numbers all wrong.

GWCT Scotland is helping to run the PARTRIDGE project, part funded by the EU’s North Sea Region Interreg programme. This has ten demonstration farms across Scotland, England, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and in Scotland it is organised by Fiona Torrance.

The legend that Saint Melangell went to Wales to escape a forced marriage may be true but Jim Perrin’s claim that grey partridges run in the lanes around her church, is false (Country diary: no sanctuary for hunted partridge at Melangell’s church, July 14^th).

More than 50 people recently enjoyed a farm walk at one of the North Sea Region (NSR) Interreg PARTRIDGE project’s demonstration sites in the Netherlands.

Every year, in the third week of June, a team of GWCT scientists travel to Sussex, to roam a large area of farmland stretching 11 miles across the South Downs. They are collecting data for the Sussex study, a long-running project that is one of the cornerstones of the GWCT’s research. It all began in 1968 and has provided a wealth of important data on the impact of farming methods, policy and conservation techniques.

Eleven partners from the Interreg North Sea Region (NSR) PARTRIDGE project, led by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, met in Germany between June 27 and 29 for their third meeting.