Yesterday I described a scientific study on the potential impacts of predators such as sparrowhawks and magpies (and others) on songbird numbers.
This important study, which provides hardly any support for the widely-held idea that common predators have driven down the populations of songbirds in the UK has been described elsewhere by others, so you can check my description against those.
The paper's summary is published by the Journal of Applied Ecology here.
The BTO, who were the lead researchers issued a press release and also an article.
Songbird Survival, not known for their balanced or enthusiastic approach to predators, and who funded the research, mention its existence on their website, and link to the BTO press release, but have not yet given a full account of the research findings nor have they updated their views on grey squirrels, sparrowhawks, magpies etc in order to take account of the research that they themselves funded. Previous press quotes from Songbird Survival suggest thay they may be taking time to come to terms with the results of the research (see here, here, here, here)
Other links I have found to the results are here and here.
But the Daily Mail and Daily Express appear to have read different scientific papers! Where are all the songbirds? Ask a hungry sparrowhawk trumpets the Daily Mail and Named, the guilty hawk echoes the Daily Express. Do have a look at both and see how wide of the mark the headlines are and how far short of accurate is the reporting too. Heaven knows what the Shooting Times view of the research might be!
Anyone can make up their own minds on what the science says - the internet certainly helps because you can read the published paper (just its abstract right now, but later the full paper) and the views of its authors - but if you only read the Mail or Express today do you think you would have an accurate picture of the research? And all those who just skim the headlines - how accurate an impression would they get?
The trouble with lots of these studies is that we need someone like yourself to wade through them and make the results plain,then of course not everyone agrees.Surely as we are surrounded by negative results time after time showing,proving to us doubters that all predators do no harm all this money should be diverted to increase numbers everyone agrees are low.Time after time lots of money wasted on proving something that is useless.Maybe I am the only one fed up of reports time after time telling us the same thing.If we didn't believe the first one we will not believe the one hundredth one published quite a while ago.Put this money and effort to better use.Even all the paper etc used makes them enviromentally unfriendly.Thank goodness got that off my chest.