Warning that conservationists 'not doing enough' to protect capercaillie
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Conservationists are not doing enough to save the capercaillie, the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) has warned.
Danish clothing tycoon Anders Povlsen’s company Wildland Ltd was among those criticised in a statement they just published.
In it, Alex Hogg, chairman of the SGA, said: “For years now, Wildland, RSPB and government agencies Forestry and Land Scotland and NatureScot, in the Cairngorms Connect partnership area, have not managed foxes and crows, the biggest predators of capercaillie.
“Unless you lessen the predatory pressure, quickly, it will go. We are looking at a second Scottish extinction.”
A recent report by members of the NatureScot scientific advisory committee predicted that capercaillie could disappear from Scotland within the next two to three decades.
Factors blamed for the decline included foxes, crows and pine martens eating eggs and young birds, disturbance by visitors, and also fatal collisions with deer fences.
The report proposed various actions, including increased predator control.
The results of a comprehensive survey published earlier this month estimated there are just 542 capercaillie left in the wild in Scotland.
Mr Hogg said: “The reality is, it’s closer to 300. Capercaillie survival has never been about predator control only. It has always been about both.
"That is clear.
"However, the prevailing emphasis in the projects to save the capercaillie have always leant towards habitat creation, first; work the conservation NGOs would probably have done anyway."
He added: “Yes, creating habitat is good. We all do it, not just the NGOs. That is not the key issue now for the capercaillie.
"The numbers are so low as to be almost unviable...
“The fact is, the Government agencies, rewilding landlords and conservation NGOs comprising that partnership now need to look to themselves in the mirror because whether we continue to have capercaillie in Scotland depends now on what they do next.
“It is they who hold the future of the caper in their hands because the major percentage of the remaining forests are owned or managed by them.”
But the RSPB said of the report: "Whilst mostly agreeing with the findings, we do have some concerns about the over-emphasis of the importance of evidence underpinning predation and predator control, and under-emphasis of the impacts of climate change and habitat management.
"We believe these need to be addressed when deciding on actions to take forward to help Capercaillie."
The charity added: "Our Abernethy nature reserve, is trialling such an approach using long-term, large-scale habitat restoration as part of Cairngorms Connect, rather than intensive predator control that cannot be sustained.
"Despite ceasing fox and crow control in the last five years at Abernethy, the number of capercaillie males counted at leks has remained stable since 2013, and the 2022 count is the highest we have seen for a decade."
A spokesman for NatureScot said. “While some studies have shown that very intensive predator control will benefit woodland grouse, including capercaillie, such intensive effort is rarely sustainable, particularly over a large area and long timescales.
"We need to develop further work to understand how landscape-scale habitat management could be used to provide longer-term sustainable solutions to reduce impacts of predators on species such as capercaillie. This would greatly reduce the need for continued expenditure of huge resources on lethal control."
A spokesman for Wildland Ltd declined to comment.
