Why Sparrows Need Hedges

Why I feel the Media has done little to help the House Sparrow

Over the past few years, there have been several articles in the press highlighting the decline of house sparrows from our towns and cities. However, like many important everyday continuing stories, it's ignored week after week, instead of getting the regular publicity it deserves.

House sparrow decline has been treated more like a curiosity rather than the serious warning it should be regarded as.

Apart from The Independent, who have returned to this story periodically over the past four years, other newspapers, radio and television have been woefully poor in their house sparrow coverage.

Considering the huge media coverage wasted on the dire minutia of politicians, actors or sporting stars, if just a fraction of this publicity could be expended on seriously trying to gather current house sparrow observation and status data, and collect ideas from a wider concerned audience, the cause of our sparrow's decline might be resolved quicker.

It's been a great disappointment to me to try and get any media group interested in the sparrow plight as seen by me, a complete amateur and unknown in the ornithological world. However, the Internet gives almost anyone the opportunity to air their views worldwide and that's what I hope to achieve with this website.

Sparrows Need Hedges. Three simple words that state the obvious. Yes, of course there will be some exceptions to any statement, but all the sparrows I've witnessed in my life in my home city of London, utilise hedges in their daily lives. It may take some time, but I hope to make others understand this.

Hedge loss in towns and cities due primarily to front garden destruction has directly contributed to the continuing decline of house sparrows, and the sparrow's disappearance really has acted like a miner's canary - telling us by its departure that the concreting of our neighbourhoods for cars, is degrading our environment by affecting air quality, increasing pollution and escalating noise levels. The loss of allotment sites is a city's greatest crime. Their destruction for development is wrong on so many levels.

Lack of greenery around where we live has caused house sparrows to die out. This change of local environment is not good for humans either. We will all suffer if the problem is allowed to continue without a murmur of protest - but I don't hold out much hope….

In my part of North London, the local newspaper regularly carries reports of proposed new housing redevelopments. Current housing estates are due to be demolished over the next few years to make way for additional housing. Unfortunately, the housing in question will be more flats in tall blocks surrounded by car parks.

Thousands more people will be crammed into areas currently under strain from lack of health, education and transport provision. The increased resultant traffic will cause serious gridlock. The amount of green spaces available for these people and any wildlife is minimal. Even streets of 'normal' housing are changing their character as houses are converted to flats, lose their front garden for parking, or are demolished and redeveloped into apartment blocks. There's little protest about any of this in the media, and it's all linked to sparrow loss.

Any piece of 'wasteland' is being built on, and vast areas like disused railway sidings, end up as a retail park, cinema complex, hotel and fast food outlet, encompassing a large barren car park. What hope is there for any wildlife, except the rat, let alone birds, and especially the house sparrow in our rapidly overdeveloped conurbations?

The media should be regularly highlighting the loss of our house sparrows, as this is the vanguard of further problems to come in our overheating cities, with an increasing population suffering asthma, overcrowding and stress.