DICK POTTS (1939-2017) |


Dick was determined to develop practical solutions that could co-exist with modern farming such as conservation headlands and beetle banks.


where Dick became the director of research in 1977. Through experimental work, he sought to verify the conclusions from the Sussex modelling and develop practical solutions that could co-exist with modern farming. This led first to the Cereal and Gamebirds Project, which developed selectively sprayed field margins known as ‘conservation headlands’, and mid-field tussocky grass strips known as ‘beetle banks’. Farm-scale experimentation demonstrated the efficacy of such management in restoring invertebrate abundance and improving partridge chick survival, while agronomic studies evaluated practical farming issues. Second, the Salisbury Plain Experiment demonstrated conclusively that generalist predators affected not just partridge breeding success but also their breeding abundance, contradicting accepted ecological wisdom but in line with traditional gamekeeper lore. Meanwhile, the Sussex Study did not stop and annual monitor- ing continues to the present day, making it the longest-running study of farmland ecosystems in Europe, if not the world. His passion for partridges


continued unabated throughout his life. Most authors aspire to write one monologue on their chosen species. Dick wrote two, the first one in 1986 covering the Sussex story of partridges, pesticides, predation and farming, and the second one in 2012 ranging more widely across partridge species and their biology, published in the prestigious Collins New Naturalist series. Dick was, however, by no means a single-species


plants of these insects, thus causing a decline. That farmers and farming held the key to reversing the declines of farmland birds, and it was possible to devise management solutions compatible with modern agriculture. That the removal of common predators, seasonally and legally, could improve the breeding success and breeding abundance of ground-nesting birds both in lowlands and uplands. That raptor predation could put a stop to driven red grouse shooting and its associated benefits to upland breeding waders, so that a managed solution was needed to resolve the grouse-raptor conflict.


“For all of his working life Dick was told that thriving farmland wildlife could not co-exist with modern farming. Dick proved the doubters wrong – he was good at that”


Dick became director general of The Game Conservancy Trust in 1993 until he retired in 2001. During that period, he oversaw the transformation of Lord and Lady Allerton’s gift of Loddington Farm into an influential demonstration farm, where the Trust turned ‘words into birds’. He was also the driving force behind the Joint Raptor Project, which quantified the impact of hen harrier predation on red grouse demography at Langholm Moor, in southern Scotland. He coined the phrase ‘conservation through wise use’, which became a byword for sustainable harvest- ing of game species. In retirement


biologist. He turned his skills to conservation issues concerning other species including brown hare, red grouse, woodcock and lapwing. Research on these species has been taken up by GWCT staff and so our knowledge of game and associated species improves, thanks to Dick’s original inspiration. Dick’s ideas were often viewed as pioneering, or even


‘before their time’, so it often took a while for the scientific community to catch up with them. Dick was talking about the pressures of modern farming affecting the survival of farmland birds 20 years before the Government or its agencies also reached this conclusion. But Dick never criti- cised farmers for their action. He did not play the ‘blame game’, he was more interested in what could be done to improve the situation. Dick always thought positively. Among Dick’s original thoughts were: That pesticides operating via the disruption of the food chains of farmland birds could remove the insects eaten by chicks and also remove the host


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Dick remained active, continuing to work on his beloved Sussex study area and helping to bring about the remark- able recovery of the grey partridge on the Norfolk Estate there, after the estate set about implementing all of Dick’s knowledge about grey partridges. For all of his working life, Dick was told that thriving farmland wildlife could not co-exist with modern farming. Dick proved the doubters wrong – he was good at that. Also, in retirement, Dick worked with the World


Pheasant Association (WPA), the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC). Almost up to his death, you could hear Dick’s laughter and enthusiastic bubbly personality filling the corridors at the Fordingbridge HQ of the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, as he discussed the latest analysis of the long-term data from Sussex or how the lapwing were improving on the Norfolk Estate or how ground beetle assemblages were changing in the cereal fields of west Sussex. Dick’s drive, enthusiasm, vision and ‘can do’ attitude


inspired several generations of scientists and his legacy will continue in the GWCT. He will be sorely missed.


GAMEWISE • SUMMER 2017 | 9


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