Shooting Times & Country Magazine
Lessons from Loddington
Twenty-five years ago the GWCT was left an estate, on which it pioneered keepering and conservation schemes
The Allerton Project 25 years on
It hardly seems possible, but this year the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) celebrates 25 years of owning and running the Loddington estate in Leicestershire. Christened the Allerton Project, after Lord and Lady Allerton, who left it to us in their will, this estate has revolutionised what the GWCT has been able to offer by way of education and advice. It has also had a far-reaching impact in improving conservation practice in the living and working countryside.
When it all began in the early 1990s, Europe’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) had driven an agricultural revolution. It had taken us from the real hunger and food shortages of World War II, to
“Malcolm Brockless set about working his magic and the wild pheasants responded”
a point where there was too much food. To solve the grain and butter “mountains” and the wine “lake”, Europe imposed a new regime — set-aside. Rather than take the foot off the throttle and ease back on the intensity of agriculture, farmers were encouraged to maximise production on the land that was being farmed and paid to not use the rest.
Set-aside or conservation
One of the first objectives for the Allerton Project was to understand how to maximise the conservation value of the set-aside, then educate regulators and inform policy. The trouble was, the EU rules were very restrictive, saying, for example, that you could not profit in other ways from land that was not growing a crop. In addition, there was no question of farmers receiving any top-up to their set-aside payments for doing things more adventurous than allowing “natural regeneration”, then mowing it during the nesting season to stop the weeds. While we made a bit of progress in developing “unharvestable” wild bird seed mixes that would grow well together, and used herbicides rather than mowing to control the weeds, we did not get as far as we might have hoped.
Set-aside has now gone and what followed were options in conservation that the farmer could take up voluntarily. These Countryside Stewardship schemes went through several incarnations, but GWCT work trying out various options, mainly at Loddington, led to many of the most useful ones in the modern schemes. Unharvested cereal headlands, wild bird seed mixes, beetle banks and wild flower margins are just a small selection of what we pioneered.
Productive farming
When the GWCT inherited Loddington, it would be fair to say that the farm was a bit behind the times. In taking on the project there was an active decision, which is still in place, that the farming would be kept up to date. With advicefrom the farming company Pennywell, production was increased across all departments. If we wanted to influence farmers and policymakers, we needed to be on the same page as the movers and shakers, and most definitely not behind the times.
The Loddington shoot
Against this background of efficient farming, and maximising the conservation value of the unfarmed land, we set out to answer a number of questions. One of them was how viable it was to employ a gamekeeper and run a shoot based entirely on wild game.
So it was that Malcolm Brockless took on Loddington. With firstclass credentials in keepering for wild partridges — having spent the previous six years on our predation control experiment on Salisbury Plain — he set about working his magic and the wild pheasants responded. Within four years the autumn population quadrupled. While Loddington was never prime partridge country, both redlegs and greys went up too, and the hares became so abundant that they had to be shot to limit crop damage.
This top-class keepering produced some wonderful sport and some very special shoot days for those lucky enough to take part. There was also a tremendous bonus in wildlife benefit, with many species of songbirds, for example, bucking the national trend of decline and increasing dramatically. Sadly, however, the economics did not stack. The shooting may have been great but even with premium pricing, there was not enough to make realistic sense in terms of the keeper’s time.
Cessation of keepering
At the end of 2001 there was a decision to stop predation control and see where that led. The answer was pretty much as expected. Game populations declined again and hares, in particular, dropped back to their original level. This showed conclusively that predation by foxes is a main driver of hare numbers, especially as all around the hares remained stable throughout the period. Our habitat improvements were surely a help but in the end, keeping predation under control was needed to reap the full conservation benefit. This is a theme that has since cropped up time and again in other areas of GWCT work.
Return of the shoot
After 10 keeperless years, it was time to think of a new phase. Right from the start, employing Malcolm full-time was a little unrealistic on the original 800 acres. How about a more tangible project for the average similar-sized farm? Today the shoot at Loddington is keepered parttime, with Matt Coup looking after 2,000 pheasants spread between four pens. It takes in a further 500 acres of ground to the north, which complements the original land.
And the only real difference from many similar-sized shoots is that releasing and shooting are both cocks only. In this way and with a comprehensive predation control programme alongside good habitat provision and management, we hope to build up a stock of truly wild hens, at the same time showing what can be done for some of the other wildlife through good gamekeeping.
The first signs are there too; hares, for example, are increasing in numbers again. We will not see the peaks of the 1990s again but I am sure there will be some pleasant surprises across a suite of wildlife species.