Why were there partridges before and now there aren't? (what can we do)

It's normal for hunters to tell you that there used to be more partridges in the field, and in general, more birds. It must be true, because even those of us who still have few gray hair, see it every day on our picnics. In addition, there is data to prove it.

SEO/BirdLife He has been repeating bird censuses all over Spain since 1998. It always uses the same methodology and therefore makes the data comparable. These data indicate that from 1998 to 2016, the red partridge has lost between 34% and 47% of its populations.

If our salaries were lowered by that percentage, would we notice it? What would we do? Well, with the partridge, nothing, we keep making her dizzy.

We go back to what people say, I used to see more, but we don't have numbers, nor do we know how many were hunted in a certain place. And so we can't quantify. Although we don't have access to the great work you're sure to be doing SEO/BirdLife, if we can know how a hunting ground has changed. How? We have a magnificent photographic archive, since 1945, of all of Spain and we can see what a certain place was like when there were many partridges. Here's an example of 1957.

In the previous image we see more than 50 plots. We don't know what he would have planted in this area, but with so many plots, there would surely be variety; rye, barley, fallow land, some wasteland and above all kilometers of borders. And there were partridges. If we see the next one, taking a leap in time, we arrive at Seventies.

The landscape has changed, a lot. Many of the plots are now together, in a large central plot. But there are still quite a few left and it can be seen that they must have different crops. We're still with our time machine, now we're going to ninety with the following image.

Here you can already see the common agrarian policy. If we thought that we had already finished unifying plots and standardizing the landscape, we were wrong. The few that remained have been incorporated into the power plant, and of course there is little room for partridges here. Where can they breed? Where are grasshoppers and other bugs going to eat those pellets? and how is it now? This is what there is At present.

More than 200 hectares in a pair of leaves, without borders or ridges, all cultivated in the same way and at the same time. And this has happened in much of Spain. Perhaps we have forgotten that partridges live in the countryside and that it is the field in which they like to live.

It is clear that the farmer has to achieve the best profitability from his farm. And this has led to an intensive mechanization of agricultural work, which requires large benches, on which the machinery can be operated. It is legitimate and we cannot and should not object. But if hunters, or an owner of a preserve or farm, want to hunt, they must act at the landscape level. We have to recover the primitive landscape. It can be done, without compromising the profitability of the farm. And without it costing a lot of money.

In future posts we'll tell you how and we'll do some numbers to see if it's interesting or not.

Cover photo: “Partridges and Thistles” canvas by Manuel Sosa