CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: REVIEW OF CAPER­CAIL­LIE CON­SER­VA­TION AND MAN­AGE­MENT Pre­pared by: ANDY FORD, DIR­ECT­OR OF NATURE AND CLI­MATE CHANGE Pur­pose: This paper presents the cur­rent pos­i­tion on caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers fol­low­ing the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee report and presents a series of recom­mend­a­tions for CNPA activ­ity going forwards.

Recom­mend­a­tions:

That the Board:

a) provide advice to staff on the approaches that they wish to see the CNPA work with NatureScot and oth­ers to devel­op on the issue of pred­at­or con­trol with­in the core caper area;

b) sup­port the devel­op­ment of a wider diver­sion­ary feed­ing approach with­in the core caper area;

c) agree that CNPA and NS lead fur­ther con­sulta­tion to devel­op a range of deliv­ery options for nature refuges, build­ing on the approach of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project;

d) agree that CNPA and NS work closely with Scot­tish Forestry, as part of the FGS review, to ensure that from 2024 the scheme can sup­port the mark­ing and remov­al of fences that pose a risk to capercaillie;

e) CNPA sup­port the deliv­ery of hab­it­at enhance­ment and expan­sion, land­scape scale sur­vey and mon­it­or­ing approaches, fur­ther research into genet­ic diversity and oth­er devel­op­ing areas of sci­entif­ic research and pre­par­a­tions for rein­force­ment work in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park;

f) agree that CNPA and NS provide stra­tegic over­sight of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms by co-ordin­at­ing and over­see­ing the col­lect­ive deliv­ery of a clear place-based strategy.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

Review of Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion and Man­age­ment – FOR DECISION

Back­ground

1. A new report by a sub­group of the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee has advised on ways to help reverse the for­tunes of caper­cail­lie in Scot­land, which could be lost with­in two to three dec­ades if we don’t move quickly.
2. The sub-group con­cluded that renewed intens­ive meas­ures are needed if the pop­u­la­tion is to be con­served. These should focus on options that will improve breed­ing suc­cess (primar­ily egg and young chick sur­viv­al), but there may also be scope for increas­ing juven­ile sur­viv­al and con­tinu­ing to min­im­ise known threats to adult survival.
3. The report lists four options that are likely to have the greatest imme­di­ate pos­it­ive impact on the population:
   • a) Pred­at­or con­trol. The evid­ence sug­gests that remov­al of crows, foxes and pine martens would likely lead to an improve­ment in breed­ing suc­cess. How­ever, any con­trol of pine martens would be con­ten­tious, giv­en its pro­tec­ted status.
   • b) Diver­sion­ary feed­ing of pred­at­ors. An altern­at­ive approach to remov­ing pred­at­ors is to provide them with altern­at­ive food dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son, which has been shown to improve the breed­ing suc­cess of oth­er ground nest­ing birds.
   • c) Redu­cing dis­turb­ance. Great­er con­sid­er­a­tion could be made of cre­at­ing more/​larger refuges from human dis­turb­ance through the clos­ure of paths and tracks either tem­por­ar­ily dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son or by per­man­ent removal.
   • d) Fence marking/​removal. While there has been much pro­gress in mark­ing or remov­ing deer fences, many remain and so can be con­trib­ut­ing to juven­ile and adult mortality.
4. It is unlikely that employ­ing a single option of those lis­ted will be suf­fi­cient to pre­vent fur­ther pop­u­la­tion declines. Instead, action should be taken on all key areas and any inter­ven­tions will need to be car­ried out on as wide a scale as pos­sible with­in the core area of Badenoch and Strathspey.
5. Any delay in enact­ing these might res­ult in the pop­u­la­tion declin­ing to a point where extinc­tion becomes inev­it­able. It would be prefer­able to adopt an adapt­ive man­age­ment approach, in which the effect­ive­ness of the inter­ven­tion meas­ures is con­tinu­ally mon­itored, and the man­age­ment régime adjus­ted accord­ingly. Mod­el­ling should prove a use­ful, and pos­sibly essen­tial accom­pani­ment to any adapt­ive man­age­ment programme.

Stake­hold­er Engagement

1. Fol­low­ing pub­lic­a­tion, CNPA and NatureScot engaged a range of stake­hold­ers to con­sider the find­ings of the report and invest­ig­ate the options in the broad­er context

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. of inter­ac­tions with wider biod­iversity and com­munit­ies, costs, prac­tic­al­it­ies and fur­ther reach­ing policy implications.
2. From 5^th — 25^th April, the views from over 100 stake­hold­ers were gathered via an online ques­tion­naire, meet­ings with groups, organ­isa­tions and indi­vidu­als, includ­ing spe­cial meet­ings of the Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group and the Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um, and writ­ten cor­res­pond­ence. These were also com­bined with the related views from mem­bers of the pub­lic received over the last two years by the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject and by CNPA in rela­tion to the draft Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.
3. Build­ing on all the views shared and feed­back received, on 4^th May CNPA and NS hos­ted a facil­it­ated work­shop for organ­isa­tions, agen­cies, land man­agers and tech­nic­al experts to help devel­op more detailed pro­pos­als on the four areas of action. Par­ti­cipants focused-in on how a series of draft pro­pos­als could poten­tially be delivered by examin­ing in more detail the like­li­hood of suc­cess, feas­ib­il­ity, resource required, costs, wider implic­a­tions, wheth­er fur­ther evid­ence is needed, risks and opportunities.

Feed­back from Stake­hold­er Engagement

1. Gen­er­ally, the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee Report has been wel­comed as a much-needed pro­act­ive step with a broad sense that it provides enough evid­ence to build on. There is not how­ever com­plete agree­ment that the four areas for action iden­ti­fied by the report are the right things to focus on now. There was a sig­ni­fic­ant response that the bene­fits of eco­sys­tem con­ser­va­tion rather than single spe­cies man­age­ment, the impacts of cli­mate change, pos­it­ive res­ults from cur­rent hab­it­at man­age­ment, genet­ics and ticks could also be very import­ant and jus­ti­fy great­er emphas­is, along­side the areas for action iden­ti­fied by the report.
2. Some stake­hold­ers felt that, whilst only a small selec­tion of the papers read by the Com­mit­tee were cited in the Report, there remain gaps in the lit­er­at­ure reviewed, par­tic­u­larly in the areas of hab­it­at man­age­ment and genet­ic stud­ies. It was also high­lighted that the case for refuges is based largely on assump­tions, albeit with new stud­ies cur­rently being peer reviewed.

Pred­at­or control

1. There is a diver­gence of opin­ion regard­ing wheth­er pred­at­or con­trol is bene­fi­cial for caper­cail­lie. The SAC report cites pub­lished evid­ence that pred­at­or man­age­ment increases chick sur­viv­al and leth­al con­trol, under license, of some pred­at­or spe­cies is a well-used and trus­ted tech­nique across much of the caper­cail­lie range.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. The applic­ab­il­ity of some of the cited evid­ence is chal­lenged on the grounds that much of the evid­ence comes from stud­ies that are more than 20 years old and the pred­at­or suite is dif­fer­ent now. Recent data shows that des­pite ceas­ing fox and crow con­trol in Aber­nethy over the last five years, the num­ber of caper­cail­lie males coun­ted at leks has remained stable since 2013.
2. These diver­gent views and sub­sequent policy pos­i­tions are likely to remain unchanged.
3. Work­shop attendees were asked to dis­cuss and assess 3 main proposals:
   • a) con­tinu­ing with fox and crow control,
   • b) fox and crow con­trol with the addi­tion of con­trolling pine martens through trap and trans­lo­cate, and
   • c) fox and crow con­trol with the addi­tion of con­trolling pine martens through trap, hold and release.
4. Leth­al con­trol was not presen­ted as an option as the NS state­ment accom­pa­ny­ing the release of the SAC report stated “…in the case of pine marten this [addi­tion­al pred­at­or con­trol] would be non-leth­al, through trap and release to oth­er parts of the UK”. Man­age­ment of oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies as well as pine marten, for example badgers, was not included as an option for dis­cus­sion as these were not covered in the SAC report.
5. There was little sup­port for con­tinu­ing the status quo of con­trolling only foxes and crows. The cur­rent situ­ation of a patch­work of inter­ven­tions, both spa­tially and in terms of spe­cies being con­trolled, is not hav­ing the demon­strable pos­it­ive effect required to either jus­ti­fy its con­tinu­ance or give con­fid­ence that noth­ing fur­ther was required, depend­ing on dif­fer­ent viewpoints.
6. Con­tinu­ing with the cur­rent situ­ation was per­ceived by some to be lack­ing the impetus and imper­at­ive to save caper­cail­lie, with asso­ci­ated accus­a­tions of inactiv­ity should the spe­cies con­tin­ue to decline. Equally it was wel­comed by some as an oppor­tun­ity to take stock and review the emer­ging sci­ence and data that might sup­port no inter­ven­tion, leav­ing space for a decision in a few years’ time.
7. Pine marten con­trol through trap and trans­lo­cate and/​or trap, hold and release was gen­er­ally agreed to be unvi­able for sev­er­al reas­ons, largely based on assess­ments by organ­isa­tions cur­rently car­ry­ing out marten trans­lo­ca­tions, includ­ing anim­al wel­fare issues, the sea­son­al­ity of nat­al moth­ers and chick rear­ing, very high costs, high risks and low guar­an­tee of suc­cess. Little sup­port there­fore exists for con­trolling pine martens through trap­ping. There is also a renewed call to revis­it the option of leth­al control.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. A rap­idly devel­op­ing under­stand­ing of the com­plex inter­ac­tions with­in an expand­ing pred­at­or guild is high­light­ing that remov­ing pine martens, in addi­tion to cur­rent pred­at­or man­age­ment, is not guar­an­teed to have the trans­form­at­ive effect that might be required. Some land man­agers feel that to be entirely suc­cess­ful, even if pine marten are con­trolled now, there is likely to be a need to invest­ig­ate ways to con­trol the num­bers of badgers and poten­tially oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies in the future. Views were also expressed about the need for ​‘smart pred­at­or con­trol’ allow­ing the struc­ture of pred­at­or com­munit­ies to remain but using appro­pri­ate tech­niques to stop reproduction.
2. Stake­hold­ers sub­sequently reques­ted two fur­ther options to be con­sidered at the work­shop: the option of act­ively choos­ing not to do any pred­at­or con­trol; and the option of con­trolling (leth­ally or oth­er­wise) martens and poten­tially a wider suite of pred­at­ors, includ­ing pro­tec­ted species.

Con­trolling (leth­ally or oth­er­wise) martens and poten­tially a wider suite of pred­at­ors, includ­ing pro­tec­ted species:

1. Under­tak­ing this level of intens­ive spe­cies level inter­ven­tion does not align with cur­rent think­ing where action to address biod­iversity loss through hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion at a land­scape scale is pre­ferred. Some man­agers are already com­mit­ted to this wider and deep­er approach to address biod­iversity loss and are likely to see some of these short-term meas­ures as a back­ward step. How­ever, hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion can­not address the imme­di­ate threat of extinc­tion, hence the need to adopt spe­cies-spe­cif­ic man­age­ment approaches.
2. It is expec­ted that increas­ing the levels of pred­at­or man­age­ment to include the pos­sib­il­ity of leth­al con­trol of a pro­tec­ted spe­cies and/​or the man­age­ment of a wider suite of meso-pred­at­ors would require sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment of time and resource over large areas and long-time scales to be effect­ive on a scale that will suf­fi­ciently reduce pred­at­or dens­it­ies. A reduc­tion in pine martens and oth­er pro­tec­ted spe­cies may have wider biod­iversity impacts that are hard to predict.
3. Addi­tion­al con­trol would be build­ing on cur­rent, effect­ive pred­at­or man­age­ment meth­od­o­lo­gies and there is a sig­ni­fic­ant exist­ing know­ledge, skills, and exper­i­ence base to build on. This approach could also lead to a reduc­tion in pred­a­tion on oth­er spe­cies and would gen­er­ate loc­al employ­ment opportunities.
4. An invest­ig­a­tion into oppor­tun­it­ies for increas­ing pred­at­or man­age­ment to include pro­tec­ted spe­cies is likely to require a review of cur­rent legis­la­tion and would require a tar­geted, fun­ded pro­gramme. The man­age­ment of pro­tec­ted spe­cies would be a high-pro­file exer­cise likely to draw sig­ni­fic­ant atten­tion. Res­ults from the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject con­sulta­tions indic­ate that pub­lic opin­ion is divided.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022 Act­ively choos­ing not to do any pred­at­or control

1. More aligned with cur­rent, eco­sys­tem-based con­ser­va­tion approaches is the act­ive choice not to do any pred­at­or man­age­ment, allow­ing for a more nat­ur­al sys­tem to self-reg­u­late and pro­mot­ing con­ser­va­tion of all spe­cies, includ­ing pred­at­ors. If suc­cess­ful, this is a more sus­tain­able long-term approach but there is a clear risk that spe­cies cur­rently con­sidered highly vul­ner­able may not have the same levels of resi­li­ence to factors such as pred­a­tion and stochast­ic events and there­fore require sus­tained and focussed effort.
2. There is cur­rently lim­ited evid­ence that this approach will improve breed­ing suc­cess, and in the times­cale required. Most recent sur­vey res­ults are show­ing a pos­it­ive trend in parts of the caper­cail­lie range where there is no pred­at­or man­age­ment tak­ing place. How­ever, data sets are for rel­at­ively short peri­ods of time, for a mobile pop­u­la­tion that occu­pies large parts of the core range.
3. This approach requires rel­at­ively little addi­tion­al fin­an­cial and resource invest­ment and would require no fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion of the leg­al frame­work. There is a need for rig­or­ous and trans­par­ent mon­it­or­ing and data shar­ing to review and adapt to emer­ging sci­ence and pop­u­la­tion data with the abil­ity to take an adapt­ive man­age­ment approach and rein­state pred­at­or con­trol if trends change.
4. The assump­tion is that this approach must be done in tan­dem with hab­it­at expan­sion and improve­ment, the cre­ation of more hab­it­at away from dis­turb­ance build­ing resi­li­ence into the nat­ur­al sys­tem in the longer term. Should a rein­force­ment approach be needed then a no inter­ven­tion pred­at­or man­age­ment policy may need to be revised as the most recent suc­cess­ful rein­force­ment pro­ject required intens­ive pred­at­or control.
5. Board mem­bers are asked to provide advice to staff on the approaches that they wish to see the CNPA work with NatureScot and oth­ers to devel­op on the issue of pred­at­or con­trol with­in the core caper area.

Diver­sion­ary feeding

1. Diver­sion­ary feed­ing is gen­er­ally seen as feas­ible and more accept­able than pred­at­or con­trol, though there are mixed views on wheth­er it is desir­able. Some stake­hold­ers strongly dis­agree with the tech­nique on eth­ic­al grounds and feel that diver­sion­ary feed­ing is not a long-term solu­tion for redu­cing pred­at­or pressure.
2. There is, how­ever, align­ment around the idea of start­ing, as soon as pos­sible, to expand the cur­rent small-scale tri­al in Badenoch and Strath­spey, i.e., con­tinu­ing to use the tech­nique on a tri­al basis, namely because uncer­tainty still exists around meth­ods and some of the prac­tic­al­it­ies and risks. It is felt that a lar­ger tri­al is unlikely

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. to have a neg­at­ive effect if mon­itored closely and an adapt­at­ive man­age­ment approach is adop­ted. Indic­at­ive costs are also thought to be reasonable.
2. Devel­op­ing a lar­ger scale tri­al would take this man­age­ment tech­nique to the next stage. The cur­rent small-scale tri­al has yet to report, and it is pre­ma­ture to detail out­comes so far, so the cur­rent evid­ence base for sup­ple­ment­ary feed­ing pred­at­ors of caper­cail­lie is defi­cient and key to suc­cess will lie in answer­ing uncertainties.
3. Sup­ple­ment­ary feed­ing may appeal to some landown­ers and man­agers who do not wish to under­take pred­at­or con­trol. In that respect diver­sion­ary feed­ing fits in to an approach that does not have to be sim­il­ar across the whole caper­cail­lie range, and where dif­fer­ent solu­tions may be appro­pri­ate in dif­fer­ent locations.
4. It is recom­men­ded that the CNPA sup­port the devel­op­ment of a wider diver­sion­ary feed­ing approach with­in the core caper area and that this is coordin­ated through the devel­op­ment of a spa­tial strategy.

Refuges from human disturbance

1. There is broad sup­port for tak­ing for­ward work to invest­ig­ate options for path man­age­ment, devel­op­ing refuges and encour­aging respons­ible access to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance. Basing this dis­cus­sion around caper­cail­lie alone is not felt to be the best approach and a broad­er approach that looks at nature refuges, or safe spaces for wild­life, is strongly encouraged.
2. Whilst sup­port exists, it must be emphas­ised that this is the start of fur­ther con­ver­sa­tions. Whilst the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject is work­ing with some com­munit­ies of place and interest in the Nation­al Park, and is strongly advoc­at­ing a col­lab­or­at­ive, co-cre­ation approach, a sig­ni­fic­ant body of recre­ation and access stake­hold­ers are not cur­rently aware of dis­cus­sions arising from explor­ing options in the SAC report and may still react strongly once pro­pos­als are dis­cussed more fully and par­tic­u­larly when they become more spa­tially specific.
3. There is broad sup­port for refuges that employ a great­er suite of meas­ures to reduce human dis­turb­ance than con­sist­ently employed cur­rently and for refuges that are tailored to ensure a pro­por­tion­al response and equity amongst access takers. A pro­por­tion­al response to the situ­ation would identi­fy activ­it­ies that are known to be high risk e.g., birders at leks and those felt to be low risk e.g., walk­ers on tracks without dogs and build these rel­at­ive impacts into pro­pos­als, rather than impose wide­spread restric­tions on everyone.
4. There are sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­it­ies to cel­eb­rate and build on what we already do in pro­mot­ing SOAC, the deploy­ment of rangers to pop­u­lar and sens­it­ive sites, con­tinu­ing the work of the Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject, pro­mot­ing less pop­u­lar and/​or

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. sens­it­ive areas of Park to vis­it­ors, con­tin­ued invest­ment in well planned, high qual­ity recre­ation­al altern­at­ives, and the expan­sion of forest hab­it­at without new pro­moted recre­ation and access provision.
2. The three options presen­ted at the work­shop were:
   • a) ​‘Quiet place for nature refuge’ – includ­ing pro­pos­als for com­munity-led devel­op­ment and deliv­ery (as per the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject approach) and/​or anoth­er approach to co-cre­ation with stake­hold­ers; redu­cing and remov­ing inform­al and form­al park­ing spaces; sig­nage, inform­a­tion, and inter­pret­a­tion; no net increase in the num­ber of paths and trails as agreed in rel­ev­ant recre­ation man­age­ment plans; a pre­sump­tion against organ­ised out­door access events; and reg­u­lar ranger patrols.
   • b) ​‘Safe place for nature refuge’ as above with addi­tion­al meas­ures for sig­nage delin­eat­ing an appro­pri­ate buf­fer around the act­ive lek site/​s with­in the refuge; remov­al of way­mark­ing and rerout­ing of trails with­in the buf­fer; and track side screening.
   • c) ​‘Secure place for nature refuge’ – as above with addi­tion­al meas­ures for diver­sion orders for exist­ing rights of way; and tem­por­ary, spa­tially lim­ited path man­age­ment agree­ments exclud­ing the exer­cise of access rights where suit­able altern­at­ives are provided.
3. There were divided views of wheth­er we need a mix of the three options across the Park or we move sequen­tially over time to have a light touch approach and then impose tight­er meas­ur­ers over time if that doesn’t work. There was some dis­agree­ment about what meas­ures should be part of which option and no real con­sensus. Some views that we should grow a net­work of refuges from human dis­turb­ance over time, start­ing with a net­work of smal­ler refuges that are defined by the likes of low track density.
4. Stake­hold­ers found it hard to dis­cuss pro­pos­als as a concept without clear idea of scale of refuges or what exactly they would mean in each area. It is recom­men­ded that any fur­ther devel­op­ment of pro­pos­als is coordin­ated through a spa­tial approach that includes broad maps or pri­or­it­ies so that the recre­ation and access com­munity can respond more fully.
5. Recom­mend­a­tion: CNPA and NS lead fur­ther con­sulta­tion to devel­op a range of deliv­ery options for nature refuges, build­ing on the approach of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022 Fen­cing

1. There is con­sensus that increased fence mark­ing and remov­al across the caper­cail­lie range will improve caper­cail­lie sur­viv­al rates. This work could be actioned rel­at­ively quickly, volun­teers could help to accel­er­ate the work and addi­tion­al fence remov­al will sig­ni­fic­antly improve land­scape qualities.
2. There is a need for more fund­ing and a more prag­mat­ic approach, e.g., to mark fences on a case-by-case basis regard­less of their dis­tance from an act­ive lek site which is the cur­rent met­ric for FGS fund­ing. Stake­hold­ers were also keen to remove fen­cing that has served its pur­pose, with pro­pos­als to mark all fences that pose a risk to caper­cail­lie and then remove them as soon as pos­sible strongly endorsed. The greatest level of align­ment exists around this option.
3. The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject con­tin­ues to provide grants to mark and remove fen­cing over Ikm from an act­ive lek site as short-term solu­tion until July 2023, when the pro­ject is due to end.
4. Recom­mend­a­tion: CNPA and NS will work closely with Scot­tish Forestry, as part of the FGS review, to ensure that from 2024 the scheme can sup­port the mark­ing of all fences that pose a risk to caper­cail­lie and the remov­al of fences as soon as possible.

Areas of work not emphas­ised for imme­di­ate devel­op­ment by the SAC report

1. There is an iden­ti­fied need for fur­ther invest­ment in hab­it­at man­age­ment to expand and con­nect areas of Scots pine forest across the Nation­al Park. More high qual­ity, big­ger and bet­ter-con­nec­ted hab­it­at away from areas of high recre­ation­al pres­sure is the long term, sus­tain­able solu­tion. This will provide caper­cail­lie with more space to adapt to cli­mate change, pred­at­or pres­sure and human activity.
2. Hab­it­at improve­ment is the most import­ant factor to achieve long-term sus­tain­ab­il­ity of the pop­u­la­tion. This requires appro­pri­ate man­age­ment of exist­ing wood­lands, redu­cing frag­ment­a­tion, min­im­ising fen­cing, and sup­port­ing the cre­ation of new, more nat­ur­al, nat­ive wood­lands. The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject con­tin­ues to improve over 10,000 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie until July 2023, when the pro­ject is due to end and CNPA con­tin­ues to sup­port and facil­it­ate fur­ther hab­it­at man­age­ment and expan­sion through object­ives in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.
3. The SAC con­clu­sion, after thor­ough invest­ig­a­tion of sci­entif­ic evid­ence so far, was there is a clear effect of weath­er, but not one of cli­mate change. There is likely to be a long-term effect of cli­mate change, but it will be gradu­al and can­not explain the recent, sud­den decline. How­ever, in look­ing to future man­age­ment and the options

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. for mit­ig­a­tion against long term effects, a num­ber of stake­hold­ers feel the impact of cli­mate change on a cold adap­ted spe­cies was under­re­por­ted and com­men­ted on pro­ductiv­ity with cold and wet spring weath­er becom­ing increas­ingly fre­quently and mit­ig­a­tion being lim­ited to hab­it­at expan­sion and field-lay­er management.
2. Ongo­ing research into new con­ser­va­tion approaches is crit­ic­al to an adapt­ive and react­ive approach to caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. There is strong sup­port for con­tinu­ing and fur­ther research into the effic­acy and meth­od­o­lo­gies of diver­sion­ary feed­ing, inter­ac­tions in the pred­at­or guild and the impact of para­sites (ticks).
3. Cur­rent mon­it­or­ing of the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion is primar­ily under­taken through brood count­ing, lek sur­veys and the 5yr nation­al sur­vey. Brood count­ing with dogs is con­sidered by some land man­agers to be intrus­ive and likely to cause unne­ces­sary dis­turb­ance com­pared to the use­ful­ness of data returned. Oth­er, less intrus­ive and com­ple­ment­ary options for sur­vey and mon­it­or­ing, includ­ing genet­ic ana­lys­is of feath­ers and use of trail cam­er­as are cur­rently being explored. There is sig­ni­fic­ant advant­age in a com­mon approach to sur­vey and mon­it­or­ing and a full trans­par­ency of data to best inform adapt­ive man­age­ment. It is recom­men­ded this is coordin­ated via a spa­tial strategy.
4. The SAC researched genet­ics and inbreed­ing and came to the clear con­clu­sion that, at present, with the cur­rent pop­u­la­tion size (derived from the 2015/2016 sur­vey), and espe­cially the short time peri­od since the pop­u­la­tion was sig­ni­fic­antly lar­ger, the chance of there being any issue of dele­ter­i­ous level of inbreed­ing was neg­li­gible and there­fore rein­force­ment is not a pri­or­ity. How­ever, there remains a strong feel­ing that invest­ig­a­tion into the genet­ics of the pop­u­la­tion should con­tin­ue at pace and pre­par­at­ory work to rein­force the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion should start now. It is felt that inbreed­ing, decreas­ing genet­ic diversity and increas­ing vul­ner­ab­il­ity to infec­tious dis­ease are likely to become a ser­i­ous issue, espe­cially if the pop­u­la­tion con­tin­ues to decline. The exper­i­ence with wild­cats has shown it takes many years to put mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures based on cap­tive breed­ing in place, and exper­i­ence with Gal­li­formes is that they are dif­fi­cult to rear and release into the wild. Lay­ing the ground­work for caper­cail­lie as soon as pos­sible is there­fore felt to be vital.
5. The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject will con­tin­ue to work with RZSS to identi­fy the genet­ic diversity of the Cairngorms caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion. This will involve a final report on the genet­ic diversity of the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in the Cairngorms being pub­lished in August and an action plan­ning work­shop with stake­hold­ers, in response to the report, will take place in September.
6. **Recom­mend­a­tion: CNPA and NS to sup­port the deliv­ery of hab­it­at enhance­ment and expan­sion; coordin­ate land­scape scale sur­vey and mon­it­or­ing approaches; sup­port fur­ther research into genet­ic diversity

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. and oth­er devel­op­ing areas of sci­entif­ic research; and pre­pare for rein­force­ment work in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.**

Spa­tial strategy

1. There is very strong agree­ment that a spa­tial strategy, plan and addi­tion­al resource for the core caper­cail­lie area will help with pri­or­it­isa­tion, mon­it­or­ing and adapt­ive management.
2. In order to be suc­cess­ful action will need to be taken col­lab­or­at­ively across mul­tiple land­hold­ings where dif­fer­ent man­age­ment object­ives are cur­rently being pur­sued. This will require strong lead­er­ship to ensure col­lect­ive engage­ment and action is achieved. A gov­ernance and man­age­ment struc­ture will be developed to enable the effect­ive deliv­ery of the strategy. This will include tech­nic­al advis­ory groups and path­ways for fur­ther con­sulta­tion and engage­ment with a wide range of interest groups and communities.
3. A spa­tial strategy would bring togeth­er, for example, multi landown­er and agency col­lab­or­a­tions and plans for:
   • a) Long term con­text and exit strategy
   • b) Hab­it­at expan­sion and enhancement
   • c) Diver­sion­ary feed­ing trials
   • d) Fence mark­ing and removal
   • e) Research and monitoring
   • f) Map­ping of core caper­cail­lie areas
   • g) Map­ping of safe spaces/​refuges
   • h) Com­mon sig­nage and messaging
   • i) Com­mu­nic­a­tions and engagement
   • j) Rein­force­ment and trans­lo­ca­tion plans
   • k) Cos­ted action plans
4. Whilst stake­hold­ers feel there is value in hav­ing a strategy, con­cerns were expressed about the poten­tial for strategy devel­op­ment and writ­ing to delay action on the ground.
5. Recom­mend­a­tion: CNPA and NS provide stra­tegic over­sight of caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Cairngorms by co-ordin­at­ing and over­see­ing the col­lect­ive deliv­ery of a clear place-based strategy.

Con­clu­sion

1. NatureScot and CNPA are work­ing togeth­er to pre­pare a brief­ing for Ms Lor­na Slater, Min­is­ter for Green Skills, Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy and Biod­iversity, outlining ||

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 4 10^th June 2022

1. con­clu­sions from the work to date and seek­ing advice on areas of work to progress.
2. The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject con­tin­ues to work with com­munit­ies of place and interest to identi­fy oppor­tun­it­ies for a wide range of people to play a part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion, includ­ing through the co-cre­ation of plans to min­im­ise dis­turb­ance and pro­mote respons­ible enjoy­ment. The CCP pro­ject board will con­sider how the out­puts from fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion of options in the SAC report can be incor­por­ated into the approved pur­poses of the pro­ject and the project’s legacy.

Andy Ford 31 May 2022 andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk 12