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Commentary

Nature 400, 611-612 (12 August 1999) | doi:10.1038/23127

Open Innovation Challenges

The second Silent Spring?

John R. Krebs1, Jeremy D. Wilson3, Richard B. Bradbury1 & Gavin M. Siriwardena2

  1. John R. Krebs and Richard B. Bradbury are at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK.
  2. Gavin M. Siriwardena is at the British Trust for Ornithology, Thetford, Norfolk, UK.
  3. Jeremy D. Wilson is at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Sandy, Bedfordshire SG19 2DL, UK.

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The drive to squeeze ever more food from the land has sent Europe's farmland wildlife into a precipitous decline. How can agricultural policy be reformed so that we have fewer grain mountains and more skylarks?

The Roman poet Catullus lamented the death of a pet sparrow ("Passer mortuus est meae puellae "), probably a house sparrow (Passer domesticus) or, just conceivably, a tree sparrow (P. montanus).