Authorities urged to take urgent action to save capercaillie

Capercaillie, the world’s largest grouse, is an iconic species of old pinewoods. In the UK, it is confined to the Scottish Highlands, living in fragments of the once widespread Caledonian Forest, including remote corners of the Angus glens, where it is in severe trouble.

The GWCT has even gone as far as to forecast that the capercaillie could be extinct in as little as 35-5- years.

Sharp declines are occurring because fewer chicks hatch and survive in Scotland than elsewhere in their European and Russian range.

In August, the trust completed its 33rd consecutive year of capercaillie brood surveys, with the results showing a continued decline in breeding success over time.

When surveys commenced in 1991, capercaillie numbered approximately 2200 birds, spread from Argyll and Perthshire to the south and west, Aberdeenshire in the east and Ross-shire in the north. Now, perhaps only 300-400 birds remain, with 90% confined to one area of Strathspey in Inverness-shire.

GWCT research has shown that capercaillie breed better in years when June weather is dry and warm, and in forests where predators such as carrion crow and pine marten are fewer. This year, despite good weather, the survey found only 0.4 chicks fledged per female, below the 0.6 chicks needed to maintain numbers.

This was the fifth consecutive year when insufficient chicks fledged, thus hastening the decline. The trust has said that despite conservation programmes to improve capercaillie habitat, extinction seems likely within the next 30-50 years.

Earlier this year, scientific advisors to NatureScot reviewed causes of decline and urged four immediate management actions. To increase breeding success, they recommended measures including reducing predation by lethally controlling foxes and crows, translocating legally protected pine martens and by providing remaining predators with alternative diversionary food. NatureScot subsequently dismissed translocation on feasibility grounds but, the trust said, failed to address the need for proven, immediately available alternatives to protect capercaillie broods. Meanwhile the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) has since distanced itself from the crow and fox recommendations of the NatureScot scientific report.

Lead surveyor Dr David Baines, GWCT’s head of upland research, said: “The end is nigh for capercaillie unless we quickly turn around the low chick survival. Pine martens have increased in recent decades and are known to consume eggs and chicks. Their licensed removal from key capercaillie strongholds is urgently required to help avoid species extinction.”

Rory Kennedy, Director Scotland, GWCT, said: “NatureScot’s Scientific Advisory Committee provided a bold, evidence-based road map for saving the last of our capercaillie. If public bodies and private landowners now choose to ignore its recommendations then they need to be held accountable for the inevitable extinction of this species in Scotland.”