RSPB Scotland responds to capercaillie announcement
A press release issued today by Cairngorms National Park Authority outlined support for co-ordinated action to help capercaillie, along with the results of lek counts and a genetic study.
In response to this Duncan Orr-Ewing, head of species and land management at RSPB Scotland said: “We welcome today’s announcement, with support from the minister Lorna Slater MSP, that a costed spatial plan for the delivery of positive conservation measures for capercaillie will be developed in consultation with stakeholders, along the encouragement of landscape scale pinewood habitat restoration.
“We will also support proposed surveys to better understand the local pine marten population. We encourage this conservation programme to move ahead quickly now to help recover capercaillie populations in the species’ Scottish and UK stronghold of the Cairngorms National Park.
“In 2022 we supported the main outcomes of the NatureScot review of capercaillie conservation and management, however we raised concerns about both the need and practicality of any removal of pine martens from capercaillie areas.
“At Abernethy National Nature Reserve, we have seen a welcome increase in the number of male and hen capercaillie attending their lek display grounds in recent years, and we are pleased to report that these increases continued in 2023.
"We have been undertaking a huge amount of work to help these iconic birds - this includes habitat restoration by restructuring plantations; cattle grazing; heather cutting in the forest; and using diversionary feeding of predators to reduce predation of capercaillie.
"In addition, we reduce and manage human disturbance to capercaillie through ranger provision, signage, communication work and removal of some vehicle tracks.”
