CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 6 14 June 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title: CAIRNGORMS CAPER­CAIL­LIE PRO­JECT UPDATE

Pre­pared by: ANDY FORD, HEAD OF CON­SER­VA­TION AND CAR­O­LYN ROBERTSON, PRO­JECT MAN­AGER, CAIRNGORMS CAPER­CAIL­LIE PROJECT

Pur­pose To update the Board on the pro­gress of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project.

Recom­mend­a­tions That the Board note the pro­gress of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project.

Caper­cail­lie Status and Distribution

1. There are only around 1,100 caper­cail­lie left in the UK and approx­im­ately 90% live in the Park. The pop­u­la­tion has under­gone sig­ni­fic­ant decline from around 20,000 birds in the 1970s; the equi­val­ent of one caper­cail­lie every day for the last 40 years.

2. Recent nation­al sur­veys, con­duc­ted every five years, have indic­ated there is a sig­ni­fic­ant range con­trac­tion back to the strong­hold of Badenoch and Strath­spey, which now holds approx­im­ately 85% of the nation­al pop­u­la­tion and is there­fore crit­ic­al to pre­vent extinc­tion in Scotland.

3. The primary factors affect­ing decline are poor pro­ductiv­ity, frag­ment­a­tion and lack of hab­it­at, col­li­sion with unmarked fences, pred­a­tion, wet and cold spring weath­er and dis­turb­ance lead­ing to avoid­ance of heav­ily used areas. Research has shown that caper­cail­lie tend not to use areas with­in ~100m of well used tracks and paths, although they are present in some high foot­fall areas in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park includ­ing Glen­more and High Burnside.

4. Caper­cail­lie are Sched­ule I spe­cies mak­ing it illeg­al to inten­tion­ally or reck­lessly dis­turb the birds dur­ing lek sea­son. The RSPB lek view­ing facil­ity ceased to oper­ate in 2016 and pro­tect­ing caper­cail­lie from dis­turb­ance, par­tic­u­larly dur­ing lek sea­son, remains a chal­lenge as a minor­ity of bird watch­ers con­tin­ue to vis­it known lek sites.

Back­ground

1. The Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group, chaired by Pete May­hew, takes an over­view of the factors affect­ing the nation­al caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion and guides work on the pro­tec­tion and enhance­ment of the spe­cies. The group com­prises an extens­ive range of part­ners to advise on the most press­ing issues and future priorities.

2. European LIFE fund­ing from 2000 to 2006 provided resource to mark fences and increase pred­at­or con­trol. Along with an earli­er Forestry Com­mis­sion Scot­land fun­ded pro­gramme of fence remov­al and mark­ing, it is gen­er­ally accep­ted that this fund­ing hal­ted the very rap­id decline of the pop­u­la­tion and without it the bird may well have become an unvi­able population.

3. Work in the Nation­al Park has recently focussed on bring­ing togeth­er part­ners to invest­ig­ate and find res­ol­u­tion on the over­lap­ping issues of devel­op­ment man­age­ment, recre­ation, hab­it­at expan­sion and des­ig­na­tion at a land­scape-scale. The res­ults of this invest­ig­a­tion were writ­ten up as the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Frame­work in 2015. The frame­work iden­ti­fies a num­ber of recom­mend­a­tions for part­ners to take forwards.

4. In 2016 a pro­ject team, led by CNPA, was formed to pull togeth­er a fund­ing applic­a­tion to Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (formerly Her­it­age Lot­tery Fund) to deliv­er some, but not all, of the recom­mend­a­tions in the Caper­cail­lie Frame­work. In 2018 £517,700 fund­ing was secured for a devel­op­ment phase. If suc­cess­ful this could lead to a fur­ther £3.5 mil­lion for a deliv­ery phase. A pro­ject man­ager and staff star­ted work on the devel­op­ment phase of the pro­ject in Octo­ber 2018.

Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project

1. The aim of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject is to explore new ways to col­lab­or­ate with people who live in, work in and vis­it the Nation­al Park to help them play a part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. It will do this by: a) Cre­at­ing more hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. b) Enabling more people to get involved in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in the Park. c) Enabling com­munit­ies in the Park to cre­ate their own action plans to help capercaillie.

d) Provid­ing fin­an­cial sup­port where neces­sary to help landown­ers con­trolling pred­at­ors to con­tin­ue this work. e) Con­firm­ing the genet­ic health of caper­cail­lie in the Park.

1. The pro­ject is innov­at­ive in that it is put­ting people at the heart of con­ser­va­tion decision mak­ing and mak­ing people part of the answer to caper­cail­lie sur­viv­al, rather than part of the prob­lem. The pro­ject seeks to find ways people and wild­life can live along­side each oth­er, provid­ing a mod­el to save at risk spe­cies around the world.

2. The pro­ject focusses on the mul­tiple bene­fits to soci­ety that con­ser­va­tion brings, be they related to health and well-being, the loc­al eco­nomy, land­scapes, inclu­sion or employ­ment. The pro­ject will bring people togeth­er to share what’s import­ant to them and find com­mon ground with spe­cies’ needs. For example, bet­ter paths to access and enjoy loc­al wood­lands will also bene­fit caper­cail­lie if they min­im­ise dis­turb­ance in oth­er, more sens­it­ive areas.

3. In addi­tion to the work with com­munit­ies of place and interest, the pro­ject is build­ing on exist­ing under­stand­ing of hab­it­at, eco­logy and beha­viour to provide a more sus­tain­able long-term future.

4. There are still oth­er factors that fall out­with the scope and remit of the pro­ject, not eli­gible for Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund­ing (NLHF) fund­ing, which con­tin­ue to be taken for­wards by the Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group e.g. translocation/​rein­force­ment and pred­a­tion by pro­tec­ted species.

Devel­op­ment Phase

1. The pro­ject is cur­rently in a test­ing and learn­ing phase. Until March 2020 the pro­ject is tasked with find­ing answers to the ques­tion ​‘how can com­munit­ies of place and interest play a part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion?’ This involves tri­al­ling dif­fer­ent approaches and work­ing up approaches into a defin­it­ive plan for deliv­er­ing solu­tions dur­ing a deliv­ery phase 2020 – 2023.

2. Dur­ing this phase the pro­ject is test­ing a meth­od­o­logy for co-cre­at­ing a com­munity-led action plan for caper­cail­lie (cur­rently called a Wood­lands for People and Wild­life Plan). Car­rbridge is the pilot com­munity, tri­al­ling this approach which will identi­fy com­munity needs and over­lay them with spe­cies’ needs to find com­mon ground.

3. There has been, and still is, some very vocal cri­ti­cism from a small minor­ity to the pilot in Car­rbridge ques­tion­ing the legit­im­acy and inten­tions of the pro­ject. How­ever, the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Com­munity Work­ing Group, estab­lished to sup­port and guide this ele­ment of the pro­ject, has unan­im­ously agreed to take work for­wards by recruit­ing a com­munity devel­op­ment agency to facil­it­ate con­ver­sa­tions with the whole com­munity around what they value and want from their wood­lands and what they can do to help save capercaillie.

4. Carrbridge’s role in the pro­ject is key in help­ing the pro­ject to learn and strengthen its plans for the Deliv­ery Phase when more com­munit­ies in the Park will be invited to fol­low Carrbridge’s lead and cre­ate their own com­munity-led action plans to help look after their loc­al caper­cail­lie. The com­munit­ies the pro­ject would like to work with in the deliv­ery phase are yet to be final­ised but likely to include the fol­low­ing: a) Res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to Grant­own-on-Spey (e.g. wild­life watch­ers, accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders and dog walk­ers) b) Res­id­ent and vis­it­ing recre­ation­al users of High Burn­side (e.g. moun­tain bikers, run­ners and dog walk­ers) c) Landown­ers, man­agers and users of a Deeside estate (where small and isol­ated Caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions remain) d) Res­id­ents and vis­it­ors using the Spey­side Way between Boat of Garten and Nethy Bridge (where pre­vi­ous com­munity work related to caper­cail­lie provides a found­a­tion to build on).

Next Steps

1. The find­ings from the devel­op­ment phase will form the basis of an action plan for deliv­ery phase, describ­ing in detail exactly what the pro­ject plans to do 2020 – 2023. This will include: a) Hab­it­at improve­ment plans for over 200ha of exist­ing hab­it­at and over 150ha of new nat­ive wood­land. b) Con­tinu­ing to mon­it­or num­bers of adults and chicks through lek sur­veys and brood counts and a pub­lic app enabling more people to report Caper­cail­lie sight­ings and signs. c) Assess­ing the genet­ic health of caper­cail­lie in the Park by col­lect­ing and ana­lys­ing feath­ers. d) Addi­tion­al game­keep­ers to enable exist­ing pred­at­or man­age­ment to be increased and exten­ded where rel­ev­ant. e) Events, media and out­reach pro­grammes to raise aware­ness and under­stand­ing f) Col­lab­or­a­tion with fur­ther com­munit­ies of place and interest to co-cre­ate action plans (Wood­lands for People and Wild­life Plans) that may include: i. Volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies ii. Activ­it­ies for loc­al school chil­dren iii. Improve­ments to wood­land paths iv. Sig­nage and way-mark­ing in the woods v. Activ­it­ies and inform­a­tion for vis­it­ors vi. Appoint­ment of a loc­al Ranger vii. Cre­at­ive and artist­ic responses to caper­cail­lie viii. Safe spaces for wild­life in the woods, includ­ing caper­cail­lie ix. Areas in the woods for spe­cif­ic user groups and people with spe­cif­ic needs

2. The plans for deliv­ery phase, along with reports of les­sons learnt from devel­op­ment phase and plans for mon­it­or­ing, main­ten­ance, leg­acy, risk man­age­ment and budget, will com­prise an applic­a­tion for deliv­ery phase fund­ing to be sub­mit­ted in March 2020. This applic­a­tion to NLHF is a com­pet­it­ive pro­cess, to be decided by the Scot­land Committee.

Andy Ford Car­o­lyn Robertson 23 May 2019 andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk carolynrobertson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk