ABOUT THE PEPPERING PROJECT

In 2003 Dr Dick Potts, the internationally renowned ecologist and conservationist, informed the Duke of Norfolk that unless something was done, the wild Grey Partridge would become extinct on the South Downs within five years.

Dick had been counting the Grey Partridges annually on 70 square kilometres of the South Downs since 1968, and he had seen their numbers diminish year on year. By 2003, there were less than 40 Grey Partridges remaining with only 11 in the western end of the count area where Peppering is situated. As Dick Potts pointed out the wild Grey Partridge is a barometer of the health of arable England and we lose it at our peril.