221125PerformanceCtteePaper3Annex1CaperHighlight-Report_Q2_2022-23

Taing dhan A’ Mhaoin- Dualchais

Made pos­sible with Her­it­age Fund

Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject Pro­gress Report: 1 July — 30 Septem­ber 2022

Cairngorms NATION­AL PARK Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

The inform­a­tion in this doc­u­ment is sub­mit­ted and dis­cussed as part of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project’s quarterly report­ing to the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund.

Pro­ject sum­mary The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject is work­ing to secure the long-term sur­viv­al of caper­cail­lie in the UK. Fun­ded by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund until July 2023, the project’s actions for caper­cail­lie are being delivered across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

The project’s key actions are:

• to enable com­munit­ies to devel­op and deliv­er their own com­munity-led actions for capercaillie;
• raise aware­ness of the plight of caper­cail­lie and how people can help;
• research the genet­ic diversity of caper­cail­lie in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to help inform action;
• improve and cre­ate more hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie and under­take pred­at­or con­trol in key areas;
• strengthen cur­rent caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing to enable more informed decisions

The pro­ject is led by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and delivered in part­ner­ship with the Badenoch & Strath­spey Trail Asso­ci­ation, Bal­mor­al Estate, Brook Forestry, Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group, Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scot­land, Forestry and Land Scot­land, Groves Forestry, Rothiemurchus Estate, RSPB, Scot­tish Forestry, NatureScot and Seafield and Strath­spey Estates.

Pro­ject start date 22 July 2020 Grant expiry date 30 July 2023

1

Pro­gress towards the project’s approved purposes

Green Deliv­ery is on track Amber Minor issues are impact­ing deliv­ery Red Major issues are impact­ing delivery

The project’s three-step mod­el for enabling com­munity-led action for capercaillie

Stage 1: Why? This stage is about defin­ing the cause. Why does (or might) caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion mat­ter to the com­munity? This is about identi­fy­ing the key interest groups and lead­ers in the com­munity and listen­ing to them to identi­fy the issues and themes at play related to caper­cail­lie conservation.

Stage 2: How? This stage is about identi­fy­ing how the com­munity feels about the cause by identi­fy­ing the views held in the wider com­munity, how wide­spread those views are and where the com­mon ground is.

Stage 3: What? This stage is about enabling the com­munity to take action for the cause using the data and ana­lys­is from Stage 2 and help­ing the com­munity plan how to mon­it­or and eval­u­ate the actions they deliv­er in response.

Approved pur­pose Sum­mary of pro­gress Status Empower Car­rbridge com­munity – Stage 3 com­munit­ies to help The Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group pro­duced a cos­ted Action Plan for ensure the sur­viv­al deliv­er­ing fur­ther aspects of the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion of caper­cail­lie Strategy by July 2023. The Pro­ject Board approved the Action Plan and through com­munity- asso­ci­ated costs and it was shared with Car­rbridge res­id­ents via a new led con­ser­va­tion, by edi­tion of Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie News. imple­ment­ing the The fol­low­ing actions from the plan have now been delivered: Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Safe­guard the lek sites and sens­it­ive caper­cail­lie areas around Con­ser­va­tion Car­rbridge dur­ing the 2022 breed­ing sea­son, work­ing with the Strategy and Com­munity Ranger and CNPA Ranger Team. devel­op­ing, agree­ing and Install sea­son­al sig­nage around Car­rbridge (developed and tested as imple­ment­ing action part of the 2021 Action Plan) to pro­mote respons­ible access and dog plans with addi­tion­al walk­ing in caper­cail­lie areas dur­ing the 2022 breed­ing sea­son, work­ing com­munit­ies. with the Com­munity Ranger and land­man­agers. Com­mis­sion a brood count around Car­rbridge to provide new data on loc­al pro­ductiv­ity. (Brood count con­duc­ted in August) Pub­lish the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie News­let­ter online to help keep the com­munity informed about the work tak­ing place to help caper­cail­lie around Car­rbridge and across the Nation­al Park. Com­mis­sion the pro­duc­tion of Hapi Capis for Car­rbridge res­id­ents to adopt.

2

Approved pur­pose Sum­mary of pro­gress Status Moun­tain bik­ing com­munity – Stage 3

• The MTB Recre­ation Man­age­ment Plan for Badenoch and Strath­spey, developed as part of the Trail Feath­ers pro­ject, is now part way through a Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal.
• The MTB Recre­ation Man­age­ment Plan is designed to:
  1. Enable data driv­en decisions about trail devel­op­ment, main­ten­ance and pro­mo­tion in Badenoch and Strath­spey to ensure moun­tain bik­ing recre­ation devel­ops sus­tain­ably and sens­it­ive hab­it­ats and spe­cies are safeguarded.
  2. Enable great­er levels of respons­ible access by the moun­tain bik­ing com­munity in Badenoch and Strath­spey includ­ing res­id­ent and vis­it­ing riders.
  3. Enable the moun­tain bik­ing com­munity, land man­agers and agen­cies to com­mu­nic­ate more effectively.
• Mem­bers of the Trail Feath­ers group met for a facil­it­ated ses­sion to pri­or­it­ise the actions that they would like to deliv­er by the end of the pro­ject in addi­tion to final­ising the MTB Recre­ation Man­age­ment Plan. The pri­or­ity actions are lis­ted below and all stand to help achieve the inten­ded out­comes of the Trail Feath­ers pro­ject. Those out­comes are a cred­ible, vis­ible and sus­tain­able Trail Asso­ci­ation; con­sist­ent, co-ordin­ated and rel­ev­ant sig­nage and trail inform­a­tion across the strath; and loc­al and vis­it­ing riders aware of the plight of caper­cail­lie and tak­ing action to help.
• Pri­or­ity actions for 2022 — 2023: Youth trail camps to inspire and enable more respons­ible rid­ing and trail devel­op­ment amongst young riders. Trail devel­op­ment in areas iden­ti­fied as Com­munity Trail Areas in the MTB Recre­ation Man­age­ment Plan to meet a year-round need from res­id­ents to eas­ily access out­door recre­ation and reduce the need to use sens­it­ive areas. Path repairs to improve exist­ing pro­moted routes and reduce hab­it­at loss and frag­ment­a­tion around areas in need of repair. Hab­it­at improve­ment in moun­tain bik­ing areas, for example screen­ing and plant­ing to reduce dis­turb­ance. Con­sumer facing mes­sages to help raise aware­ness spe­cific­ally amongst vis­it­ing riders and pro­mote beha­viours that will bene­fit caper­cail­lie and oth­er wildlife.
• The devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of the pri­or­ity actions above will con­tin­ue to be sup­por­ted by the Badenoch and Strath­spey Trail Devel­op­ment Coordin­at­or, fun­ded by CNPA, and the High­land Devel­op­ment Coordin­at­or, employed by Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing Scot­land and part fun­ded by the project.

3

Approved pur­pose Sum­mary of pro­gress Status Busi­ness com­munity – Stage 3

• A part time Busi­ness Engage­ment Officer is now in post as part of the Busi­ness Com­munity Action Plan. The Busi­ness Engage­ment Officer is employed by the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and fun­ded by the pro­ject to provide ded­ic­ated and tailored sup­port to busi­nesses to help them meet their aspir­a­tions to pro­mote respons­ible enjoy­ment of the Nation­al Park.
• As part of the Busi­ness Com­munity Action Plan, Gen­oa Black were awar­ded the con­tract to devel­op, test and pro­duce tar­geted, pos­it­ive and enga­ging online con­sumer facing con­tent that pro­motes beha­viours that will be of bene­fit to the area’s nat­ur­al her­it­age, includ­ing caper­cail­lie. Work also began to devel­op a web-based solu­tion that will enable busi­nesses to eas­ily access and share the online con­tent with their customers.

Vis­it­or com­munity – Stage 3

• As part of the Vis­it­or Com­munity Action Plan Colin Mul­berg Con­sult­ing have been con­trac­ted to under­take a vis­it­or exper­i­ence audit to identi­fy where and how Aber­nethy, Rothiemurchus and Glen­more ​‘speak’ to the dif­fer­ent vis­it­or seg­ments iden­ti­fied through the vis­it­or research com­pleted earli­er this year. The audit is the next step towards the devel­op­ment and main­ten­ance of high qual­ity, sus­tain­able vis­it­or exper­i­ences and thriv­ing caper­cail­lie areas in Aber­nethy Nation­al Nature Reserve, Glen­more Forest Park and Rothiemurchus. The out­puts from the audit will be avail­able in December.

Deeside com­munit­ies – Stage 3

• A meet­ing has been held with mem­bers of the ​‘loc­al team’ in Deeside who volun­teered to sup­port the deliv­ery of the Deeside Action Plan. Meet­ings to pro­gress actions in the plan are also sched­uled to take place on 28 Septem­ber with busi­nesses and organ­isa­tions involved with man­aging for vis­it­ors in Deeside and on 10 Octo­ber with land­man­agers in and around caper­cail­lie areas in Deeside. The meet­ings will be hos­ted by the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and Bal­mor­al Estate respectively.
• As part of the Deeside Action Plan a CaperMap has been developed over­lay­ing caper­cail­lie data with form­al and inform­al paths to identi­fy areas in Deeside where dis­turb­ance is (or could become) an issue for caper­cail­lie dur­ing breed­ing season.

Dog walk­ing com­munity – Stage 1

• Wild Think­ing have now held listen­ing ses­sions on behalf of the pro­ject with 12 can­ine pro­fes­sion­als includ­ing dog walk­ers, train­ers, breed­ers, vets, groomers, people who work dogs pro­fes­sion­ally and use assist­ance dogs. The aim of the listen­ing ses­sions has been to let these key play­ers and influ­en­cers share their views about out­door exper­i­ences with dogs in Badenoch and Strathspey.
• The major­ity views shared through the listen­ing ses­sions will be used to devel­op an online sur­vey that will be pro­moted this autumn to identi­fy the views held in the wider res­id­ent dog walk­ing com­munity in Badenoch and Strath­spey and the com­mon ground around which actions could be delivered.

4

Raise aware­ness and increase under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges facing caper­cail­lie through a vari­ety of means includ­ing social media activ­it­ies and events, a new online engage­ment plat­form, volun­teer work, a pub­lic app, new resources for schools and genet­ics analysis.

• This quarter the pro­ject web­site attrac­ted 408 return­ing vis­it­ors; up 8% on the last quarter and 2,160 new vis­it­ors; up 12%. The pro­ject Face­book page has 1,980 fol­low­ers; up 8% on the last quarter.
• The fol­low­ing media have fea­tured the pro­ject this quarter: Aber­deen Live Largs & Mill­port News Ayr Advert­iser Mid­week Her­ald (Devon) Basing­s­toke Gaz­ette Mil­ford Mer­cury BBC North Wales Pion­eer Bicester Advert­iser North­ern Echo Canada Today Pow­ys County Times CBBC Rare Bird Alert Cent­ral Fife Times Read­ing Chron­icle Chard & Ilmin­ster News Red­ditch Advert­iser Cots­wold Journ­al Rich­mond & Twick­en­ham Times Coun­tryside Jobs Ross-shire Journ­al Cre­at­ive Media News Run­corn & Widnes World Cum­ber­land News & Star Scots­man Daily Mail Shrop­shire Star Daily Record South Wales Argus Den­bigh­shire Press Strath­spey Her­ald Eal­ing Times STV East Lothi­an Cour­i­er Swan­age & Ware­ham Voice Echo News (Basil­don & Can­vey) The Inde­pend­ent Enfield Inde­pend­ent The Nation­al Epping Forest Guard­i­an The Nation­al Wales Europe Break­ing News (USA) The Tele­graph Eve­sham Journ­al The Times Gaz­ette Her­ald (North Yorks) This is Lon­don Loc­al Guern­sey Press Times & Star (Cum­bria) Her­ald Scot­land Wales Online Hull Daily Mail Wandsworth Times Inverness Cour­i­er West­ern Tele­graph (Pem­broke­shire) ITV news Wilts and Gloucester­shire Stand­ard John o Groats Journ­al Wimble­don Guardian
• The first in a new series of blogs has been pub­lished for people to learn more about mem­bers of the Pro­ject Board and the Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team.
• The autumn edi­tions of Refor­est­ing Scotland’s journ­al and Scot­tish Land & Estate’s Land­Busi­ness magazine include fea­ture art­icles about the pro­ject and capercaillie.

5

Work with landown­ers to imple­ment plans to improve and man­age around 9,000 hec­tares of hab­it­at across six estates for the bene­fit of caper­cail­lie; enable landown­ers to play their part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion via a third-party grant scheme tar­get­ing land­hold­ings in caper­cail­lie areas.

• To date volun­teers have donated 2,760 hours to the project.
• A new autumn / winter pro­gramme of hab­it­at improve­ment ses­sions for volun­teers has begun start­ing with ses­sions on Bal­mor­al and Seafield Estate.
• A team of trained Fence Mon­it­or­ing Volun­teers have now walked over 90kms of fen­cing that could pose a risk to caper­cail­lie to check and record the status of the fen­cing. This work is enabling volun­teers to help busy land­man­agers and caper­cail­lie by main­tain­ing an up-to-date digit­al record of the status of all fen­cing in caper­cail­lie areas across the Nation­al Park.
• A sum­mary lek sur­vey report for 2022 has been pub­lished on the pro­ject web­site enabling the pub­lic to eas­ily access this information.
• The second phase of the pilot genet­ic lek sur­vey is due to start in Novem­ber when 182 drop­pings col­lec­ted at 2 lek sites this spring will be ana­lysed to identi­fy the num­ber of indi­vidu­al birds that atten­ded the lek sites and their sex. The res­ults of the ana­lys­is will then be com­pared to the num­ber of birds seen. A short video about the work was pub­lished on the pro­ject Face­book page and has been viewed over 500 times.
• Work is ongo­ing by RZSS to identi­fy the genet­ic diversity of the Scot­tish caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion using feath­ers col­lec­ted by the pro­ject from across the Nation­al Park. In Octo­ber, ini­tial insights from this work will be avail­able. These will include insights into the genet­ic diversity levels in the Scot­tish caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion and how they com­pare to European pop­u­la­tions. Insights into evol­u­tion­ary rela­tion­ships and poten­tially the ori­gin of the Scot­tish caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion will also be avail­able using samples from caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions across 21 countries.
• A tender pub­lished for devel­op­ing and pro­du­cing learn­ing resources to help more primary school pupils (and their teach­ers) to learn about caper­cail­lie will be re-issued this autumn on Pub­lic Con­tracts Scot­land fol­low­ing the tender receiv­ing a lack of bids earli­er in the year.
• Due to caper­cail­lie breed­ing sea­son, hab­it­at improve­ment work has largely been paused for this quarter to avoid dis­turb­ance. Fox and crow con­trol on Rothiemurchus Estate and Seafield Estate has continued.
• The pro­ject grant scheme to enable land­man­agers to improve and cre­ate more hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie received 4 suc­cess­ful applic­a­tions to under­take the fol­low­ing actions: Fence mark­ing on Inver­cauld Estate and Seafield Estate to avoid col­li­sions. Equip­ment for heath­er cut­ting on Dor­back Estate to enable more blae­berry to grow and caper­cail­lie to move around more freely. Chain­saw oper­at­ors to remove non-nat­ive trees on Bal­mor­al Estate to allow Scots pine to regenerate.
• Issue: A whole forest approach to deer man­age­ment in Tom an Uird Forest remains unvi­able through FGS fund­ing. Deer con­trol to improve over 300 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in the forest has not been delivered as a result.

6

Mon­it­or, test and eval­u­ate ideas through­out deliv­ery, apply­ing learn­ing from the pro­ject to refine activ­it­ies includ­ing hab­it­at improve­ment work, sur­vey tech­niques, pro­mo­tion­al activ­it­ies and the com­munity action plan­ning mod­el. Devel­op an innov­at­ive and rep­lic­able mod­el for com­munity-led spe­cies con­ser­va­tion that enables com­munit­ies to suc­cess­fully coex­ist with their nat­ur­al her­it­age, shar­ing the project’s find­ings intern­ally and extern­ally with UK organ­isa­tions, and fur­ther afield, to cre­ate a leg­acy of learning.

• Her­it­age Pathfind­er ran a work­shop to dis­cuss and refine the project’s Eval­u­ation Frame­work with mem­bers of the pro­ject team and part­ners who have the greatest over­sight of the dif­fer­ent aspects of the pro­ject and or spe­cif­ic areas of work.
• Qual­it­at­ive data has been col­lec­ted to eval­u­ate the caper­cail­lie sight­ings and signs app developed as part of the pro­ject. Inter­views have also been con­duc­ted to begin eval­u­at­ing the impact of the vis­it­or com­munity work on those dir­ectly involved.
• Brood counts have been con­duc­ted on Seafield Estate, Rothiemurchus and around Car­rbridge to provide new data on pro­ductiv­ity in areas where hab­it­at improve­ment work has been delivered as part of the project.
• The Eval­u­ation Frame­work includes a num­ber of tools to help eval­u­ate and refine the mod­el which has been developed to enable com­munity-led spe­cies conservation.
• Work by the James Hut­ton Insti­tute (JHI) is ongo­ing to doc­u­ment on film the pro­cess and out­comes of the Trail Feath­ers pro­ject (the project’s work with the moun­tain bik­ing com­munity) to provide inspir­a­tion, learn­ing and evid­ence in a way that can stim­u­late fur­ther debate and learning.
• Insights and learn­ing from the project’s mod­el for com­munity-led spe­cies con­ser­va­tion and work with com­munit­ies was shared with mem­bers of CNPA’s Her­it­age Hori­zons: Cairngorms 2030 team to help the team’s think­ing as they devel­op their deliv­ery phase application.

7

Mile­stones

Green Deliv­ery is on track Amber Minor issues are impact­ing deliv­ery Red Major issues are impact­ing delivery

	2020	2021	2022	2023
Recruit­ment
Recruit Pro­ject Officer, Com­mu­nic­a­tions Officer, Pro­ject Admin­is­trat­or, Com­munity Ranger and Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Assistant
Rais­ing awareness
Devel­op a Comms Plan
Launch a new pro­ject website
Com­mis­sion the design of caper­cail­lie related resources for primary schools
Devel­op an online caper­cail­lie hub
Genet­ic research
Ana­lyse DNA from caper­cail­lie feath­ers col­lec­ted from across the Nation­al Park
Deliv­er an action plan­ning work­shop in response to find­ings from the DNA analysis
Tri­al a genet­ic lek survey
Hab­it­at improvement
Improve over 300 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in Aber­nethy Forest
Improve over 30 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in Bad­den­gorm Woods
Improve over 400 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie on Bal­mor­al Estate
Improve over 300 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in Tom an Uird Forest
Improve over 4,500 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie on Rothiemurchus Estate (includes pred­at­or control)
Improve over 3,000 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie on Seafield and Strath­spey Estates (includes pred­at­or control)
Launch a grant scheme to enable fur­ther hab­it­at improve­ment for capercaillie

8

	2020	2021	2022	2023
Caper­cail­lie monitoring
Launch a pub­lic caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing app
Con­duct brood, lek and occu­pancy surveys
Pro­ject mon­it­or­ing and evaluation
Devel­op a Mon­it­or­ing and Eval­u­ation Framework
Com­munity-led action — Car­rbridge com­munity (research­ing com­munity views was com­pleted in the pre­vi­ous phase)
Plan actions
Deliv­er actions
Com­munity-led action — moun­tain bik­ing community
Research com­munity views
Plan actions
Deliv­er actions
Com­munity-led action – vis­it­or community
Research com­munity views
Plan actions
Deliv­er actions
Com­munity-led action — busi­ness community
Research com­munity views
Plan actions
Deliv­er actions
Com­munity-led action — Deeside communities
Research com­munity views
Plan actions
Deliv­er actions

9

Risks and Issues

Risk / Issue	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Pri­or­ity
1. Pro­ject inform­a­tion is	Medi­um	Medi­um	* Pro­ject Board have stra­tegic responsibility	High
used to under­mine public			for pro­ject communications.	No change
sup­port for the project.			* A Comms Plan is in place.
			* All pro­ject doc­u­ments are writ­ten for a
			pub­lic audi­ence and pub­lished on the
			pro­ject web­site (as far as appropriate).
2. Hab­it­at improve­ment work	Medi­um	Medi­um	* Part­ners apply­ing for FGS fund­ing are	High
delayed or unvi­able due to			exper­i­enced in the pro­cess and have a	No change
changes onsite, delays in			good track record of secur­ing funding.
the pro­cess of apply­ing for
FGS fund­ing and or			* Addi­tion­al resource is provided by the
con­flict­ing advice.			pro­ject to help strengthen applications.
			* Scot­tish Forestry and NatureScot are
			pro­ject part­ners and mem­bers of the
			Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team.
3. The diverse range of	Medi­um	Medi­um	* All part­ners and areas of work are	Medi­um
interests, organ­isa­tions			rep­res­en­ted on the Operational	Was High
and groups involved in the			Man­age­ment Team.
pro­ject presents
chal­lenges to effective			* The Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team
part­ner­ship working.			oper­ates under a Part­ner­ship Agreement.
			* Mem­bers of the CNPA Board and Senior
			Man­age­ment Team are mem­bers of the
			Pro­ject Board.
			* The Pro­ject Board oper­ate under a
			Memor­andum of Agreement.
4. Com­munity-led elements	Medi­um	Medi­um	* All learn­ing cap­tured from the	Medi­um
are not con­duc­ted in an			devel­op­ment phase and ongo­ing learning	Was High
effect­ive, trans­par­ent and			in the deliv­ery phase is being applied.
defens­ible way limiting
bene­fits and causing			* The Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team
dis­en­gage­ment and			(respons­ible for help­ing to strengthen the
mis­trust in communities.			project’s com­munity-led work) comprises
			of rep­res­ent­at­ives from all the community
			groups and organ­isa­tions involved.
			* A three-stage mod­el is in place to
			ensure work with oth­er com­munit­ies is
			only car­ried out if it’s con­sidered within
			the scope of the pro­ject and the
			com­munity is con­sidered viable to work
			with with the pro­ject resource available.

10

Risk / Issue	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Pri­or­ity
5. Mon­it­or­ing and evaluation	Low	High	* An Eval­u­ation Frame­work is in place	Medi­um
inform­a­tion and processes				No change
are not used effect­ively to			* A cul­ture of reflec­tion is embed­ded in the
strengthen the project;			pro­ject and pro­fes­sion­ally facil­it­ated where
inform leg­acy plan­ning; and			pos­sible.
help safe­guard the project
from inher­ent risks.
6. Reduced capa­city in the last	Medi­um	Medi­um	* Ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tions with pro­ject staff	Medi­um
12 months of the project			to ensure early notice of intentions /
due to staff leav­ing fixed-			plans to leave their posts.
term posts early to secure
future employ­ment.			* Scope to change exist­ing part-time
			con­tracts to full time if required.
			* Exist­ing ways of work­ing lend
			them­selves to pro­ject staff being able
			to pick up work rel­at­ively eas­ily from
			col­leagues if required.
7. Reduced abil­ity to	Medi­um	Medi­um	* Request sub­mit­ted for a 6‑month project	Medi­um
deliv­er actions in the last			exten­sion.
12 months due to time
con­straints and
con­tract­or availability.
8. The pro­ject increases	Medi­um	Medi­um	* Staff work closely with landowners,	Medi­um
caper­cail­lie dis­turb­ance or			land­man­agers and com­munity members	No change
is per­ceived to do so.			to stay informed and respond to any issues
			or per­cep­tions related to disturbance.
			* Comms assets are act­ively shared with
			part­ners and third parties to reduce the
			need for caper­cail­lie film­ing and
			pho­to­graphy.
			* All sur­vey work is com­pleted under
			licence and all hab­it­at improve­ment and
			mon­it­or­ing work is car­ried out in
			accord­ance with rel­ev­ant legislation.
			* The pro­ject oper­ates with­in the
			Caper­cail­lie Data Shar­ing Policy.
9. Pro­ject activ­it­ies conflict	Low	Medi­um	* Organ­isa­tions involved in potentially	Low
with oth­er ini­ti­at­ives, e.g.			con­flict­ing activ­it­ies are pro­ject partners	No change
wader con­ser­va­tion.			rep­res­en­ted on the Operational
			Man­age­ment Team and Pro­ject Board,
			oper­at­ing respect­ively under a
			Part­ner­ship Agree­ment and MoA.
10. Con­tin­ued cold and wet	Low	Medi­um	* Con­tin­ue deliv­ery — the project’s work is	Low
weath­er dur­ing capercaillie			vital to enhance caper­cail­lie survival,	No change
nest­ing and breeding			even in dif­fi­cult years; maintain
sea­son could overwhelm			pro­act­ive comms intern­ally and
the bene­fits of the project.			extern­ally; review the issue at Project
			Board to identi­fy a way forward.
11. Genet­ic ana­lys­is reveals	Low	Medi­um	* Con­tin­ue deliv­ery and fast track the action	Low
caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in the			plan­ning work sched­uled in response to	No change
UK is at risk of becoming			the genet­ic ana­lys­is; review the issue at
func­tion­ally extinct.			Pro­ject Board to identi­fy a way forward.

11

Budget

Income	Expec­ted	Received to date
Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund	2,036,100	664,725
CNPA	60,280	50,280
NatureScot	50,000	50,000
Scot­tish Forestry	28,000	16,000
Forestry Grant Scheme / SRDP	127,473	27,789
RSPB	40,000	30,000
RSPB Aber­nethy	10,000	3,080
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	224,144	107,036
Rothiemurchus Estate	41,669	26,982
Bal­mor­al Estate	11,500	2,500
Bad­den­gorm Woods	48,240	0
Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scotland	75,000	1,440
Volun­teer time (in-kind)	120,000	55,496
RSPB in-kind (tech­nic­al sup­port for the app and online hub)	27,800	3,593
Total	2,900,206	1,038,921

Break­down of income / con­tri­bu­tions received

Part­ner / Fun­der	Nature of con­tri­bu­tion	Total to date
Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund	Grant	664,725
CNPA	Dona­tion	50,280
NatureScot	Dona­tion	50,000
Scot­tish Forestry	Dona­tion	16,000
Forestry Grant Scheme / SRDP	Pred­at­or con­trol on Rothiemurchus Estate	16,176
Forestry Grant Scheme / SRDP	Wood­land regen­er­a­tion on Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	11,613
Rothiemurchus Estate	Estate con­tri­bu­tion to pred­at­or con­trol work	26,982
RSPB	Dona­tion	30,000
RSPB Aber­nethy	Con­tract­or pay­ment — field lay­er sur­vey pri­or to heath­er cutting	3,080
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Con­tract­or pay­ment — replanting	38,184
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Con­tract­or pay­ment — fence remov­al & repair pri­or to replanting	36,092
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Con­tract­or pay­ment — ground­work pri­or to felling and replanting	17,460
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Con­tract­or pay­ment — fence remov­al, replace­ment and marking	15,300
Bal­mor­al Estate	Con­tract­or pay­ment — remov­al of 1,100m of deer fence	2,500
Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scotland	Con­tract­or pay­ment — trail main­ten­ance and inspec­tion training	1,440
Total		979,832

12

Part­ner / Fun­der	Nature of con­tri­bu­tion (Added value — not in the ori­gin­al budget)	Total to date
CNPA	6‑month intern­ship to sup­port MTB com­munity work	6,762
Forestry Grant Scheme / SRDP	Fence mark­ing on Seafield Estate	22,752
Forestry Grant Scheme / SRDP	Scar­i­fy­ing to pro­mote nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion on Seafield Estate	5,672
RSPB	Pilot genet­ic lek survey	5,000
Total		40,186

Volun­teer time (in-kind con­tri­bu­tion)	Total to date
Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group	16,205
Moun­tain bik­ing (Trail Feath­ers) group	13,706
Volun­teers deliv­er­ing hab­it­at improve­ment work	3,150
Fence Mon­it­or­ing Volunteers	7,071
Caper­cail­lie monitoring	5,989
Digit­al volun­teer (pro­ject web­site design and development)	9,375
Total	55,496

RSPB (in-kind con­tri­bu­tion)	Total to date
Caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing app development	3,593
Total	3,593

Break­down of expendit­ure / investment

Com­munity	Com­munity-led action	Total
Revised nation­al caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion estim­ate to help inform action	2,400
Study of pred­at­or activ­ity in caper­cail­lie areas in Kin­veachy Forest to help inform action	7,260
Print­ing and pro­duc­tion of tri­al signs to encour­age respons­ible access in capercaillie	453
areas around Car­rbridge and stakes to install the signs
Car­rbridge	Path sur­veys and feas­ib­il­ity work to enable thriv­ing caper­cail­lie areas around Carrbridge	5,730
and paths and out­door spaces for all res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to enjoy
Car­rbridge Vil­lage Hall hire for com­munity events and con­sulta­tions to build stronger	144
com­munity involved and participation
Hapi Capi pro­duc­tion (small wooden caper­cail­lies) to build stronger com­munity involved	1,014
and par­ti­cip­a­tion
Total		17,001

13

Com­munity	Com­munity-led action	Total
Equip­ment to repair trails to reduce hab­it­at loss and fragmentation	6,041
Print­ing and pro­duc­tion of tri­al signs to encour­age respons­ible rid­ing in caper­cail­lie areas	160
Moun­tain biking	Trail Asso­ci­ation web­site to increase vis­ib­il­ity, build aware­ness and support	785