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Capercaillie Emergency Plan 2025 - 2035

Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan 2025 — 2030

1. Exec­ut­ive summary

The Scot­tish caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion risks extinc­tion with­in our life­times unless urgent action is taken. This Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan, ini­ti­ated by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, will deliv­er renewed intens­ive meas­ures at pace and at scale to com­bat this threat and help our caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion to recover.

Aligned with the long-term vis­ion of the Scot­tish Biod­iversity Strategy and the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, which pri­or­it­ise the land­scape scale res­tor­a­tion of pine­wood hab­it­at to safe­guard caper­cail­lie, this plan is focused on imme­di­ate and tar­geted meas­ures in the short-term. It iden­ti­fies actions that will max­im­ise exist­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and address spe­cif­ic gaps across a range of inter­ven­tions to rap­idly bene­fit caper­cail­lie, from improv­ing hab­it­at to redu­cing the impacts of pred­a­tion and dis­turb­ance at scale.

A wide range of pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary mech­an­isms will need to be secured to fund the deliv­ery of this plan. Suc­cess will also depend on high levels of col­lab­or­a­tion from all stake­hold­ers, led by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and NatureScot.

In the early 1990s, con­ser­va­tion sci­ence pro­jec­ted that caper­cail­lie would be extinct in Scot­land by around 2010. The fact that caper­cail­lie are still in our forests speaks volumes about our cap­ab­il­it­ies. While the pre­cari­ous state of our caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion demands con­tin­ued sup­port, such ongo­ing efforts are not uncom­mon when deal­ing with highly vul­ner­able species.

Now, thanks in no small part to the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject, the widest range of people yet are act­ively help­ing caper­cail­lie along­side long­stand­ing efforts by land man­agers. This plan provides clear dir­ec­tion for con­tinu­ing that col­lect­ive endeav­our to ensure caper­cail­lie remain in our forests for generations.

Grant Moir Chief Exec­ut­ive Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Eileen Stu­art Deputy Dir­ect­or NatureScot

2. Intro­duc­tion and overview

Object­ive

The object­ive of this Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan is to max­im­ise pop­u­la­tion impact by enabling the deliv­ery of imme­di­ate and tar­geted meas­ures to improve caper­cail­lie breed­ing suc­cess and sur­viv­al across the core of the caper­cail­lie range in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

This plan aims to strengthen, and not duplic­ate work that will bene­fit caper­cail­lie which is already defined in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan and Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy. That work includes wood­land expan­sion, peat­land res­tor­a­tion, deer man­age­ment, eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tion, and min­im­ising dis­turb­ance to sens­it­ive species.

With­in that wider con­text, this plan is focused on max­im­ising cur­rent oppor­tun­it­ies, address­ing spe­cif­ic gaps and col­lab­or­a­tion at a land­scape scale to enable great­er levels of action and at pace from 2025 to 2030 to help ensure the long-term sur­viv­al and recov­ery of the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in the UK.

Back­ground

Caper­cail­lie num­bers have decreased by 52% in the last 5 years with the latest nation­al sur­vey (2021÷22) estim­at­ing that there are only 532 caper­cail­lie left in Scot­land. This is the low­est recor­ded level since the start of the nation­al sur­vey in 1992 – 1994 and places the spe­cies at a crit­ic­al point on the recov­ery curve around the ​‘solu­tion test­ing’ and ​‘deploy­ment of solu­tion’ stages.

Fig­ure 1: Spe­cies Recov­ery Curve

graph TD
    A[Population] --- B[Monitoring]
    A --- C[Diagnosis]
    A --- D[Solution testing]
    A --- E[Deployment of solution]
    A --- F[Sustainable management]
    G[Time] --- H[Increasing]

Caper­cail­lie con­tin­ue to face threats, includ­ing hab­it­at loss, pred­a­tion, cli­mate change and human dis­turb­ance, which have not yet been adequately mit­ig­ated to reverse the pop­u­la­tion trend. While con­ser­va­tion efforts are under­way, these meas­ures have not yet res­ul­ted in a sig­ni­fic­ant pop­u­la­tion recov­ery, indic­at­ing that the spe­cies is still in the declin­ing phase rather than mov­ing towards recovery.

A sub­group of the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee has advised that caper­cail­lie could be lost with­in two to three dec­ades if we do not move quickly, and that renewed intens­ive meas­ures are needed if the pop­u­la­tion is to be conserved.

To max­im­ise pop­u­la­tion impact, meas­ures to improve breed­ing suc­cess and sur­viv­al should be tar­geted in the core range, which is in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park where 85% of the UK caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion now lives.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and NatureScot have been asked by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment to lead on the devel­op­ment of this Emer­gency Plan in col­lab­or­a­tion with rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers to achieve the long-term vis­ion of a thriv­ing caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in Scotland.

The actions in this plan are based on the best avail­able evid­ence and learn­ing from work recently delivered to bene­fit caper­cail­lie, includ­ing through the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject and Cairngorms Connect.

Views have also been gathered from a wide range of stake­hold­ers through a pro­gramme of meet­ings, work­shops and an online sur­vey facil­it­ated by the Park Author­ity and NatureScot. Those views have helped to inform this plan to ensure it is reflect­ive of costs and prac­tic­al­it­ies and appro­pri­ate with­in the wider con­text of biod­iversity and com­munit­ies in the Nation­al Park.

A key ini­tial step in imple­ment­ing this plan will be to con­duct stand­ard­ised hab­it­at assess­ments across the caper­cail­lie range with­in the Nation­al Park. These assess­ments will help to identi­fy where the inter­ven­tions out­lined can provide the greatest bene­fit, as the aim of this plan is not to imple­ment every action in every loc­a­tion. Rather it is about deliv­er­ing the ​‘right inter­ven­tions in the right places’, or the right com­bin­a­tion of inter­ven­tions in tar­geted areas to max­im­ise pop­u­la­tion impact on a land­scape scale and because there is no ​“sil­ver bul­let” solution.

Scope

The scope of this plan as set out by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment is:

  1. Land­scape scale res­tor­a­tion of pine­wood hab­it­at as the long-term mech­an­ism to achieve the vis­ion for a thriv­ing pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie in Scotland.
  2. Cos­ted and spa­tially expli­cit pos­it­ive man­age­ment meas­ures based on the recom­mend­a­tions of the NatureScot Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Com­mit­tee subgroup.
  3. A fun­drais­ing strategy which explores a wide range of pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary mech­an­isms to gen­er­ate fur­ther fund­ing for caper­cail­lie conservation.
  4. A pine marten pop­u­la­tion survey.

Geo­graph­ic­al scope

Whilst this plan is focused on out­lining tar­geted meas­ures to improve caper­cail­lie breed­ing suc­cess and sur­viv­al across the core of the caper­cail­lie range in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, it is also designed to be use­ful for man­agers of caper­cail­lie forests out­side the Nation­al Park. Those land man­agers may wish to adopt some of the activ­it­ies described in this plan and or util­ise the learn­ings and insights gained through the deliv­ery of this plan.

Roles and responsibilities

The gov­ernance and man­age­ment of this plan is out­lined over­leaf. The Park Author­ity and NatureScot are respons­ible for this plan at a stra­tegic level. A Pro­gramme Board com­pris­ing of NatureScot, the Park Author­ity, Scot­tish Forestry and Forestry and Land Scot­land will enable and assess the deliv­ery, and report­ing inform­a­tion will be shared pub­licly and presen­ted for annu­al review to the Park Author­ity Board Per­form­ance Committee.

Stake­hold­ers are respons­ible for work­ing pro­act­ively to imple­ment the activ­it­ies out­lined, mon­it­or impact and help secure fund­ing where appro­pri­ate. Spe­cif­ic part­ners are lis­ted for each of the activ­it­ies, with lead part­ners to be defined.

A Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group, chaired by NatureScot, are respons­ible for devel­op­ing and deliv­er­ing a research and mon­it­or­ing plan to inform adapt­ive man­age­ment and meas­ure the impact of the activ­it­ies out­lined in this plan. The group will also main­tain over­sight and sup­port the spe­cif­ic research actions with­in this plan, e.g. the rein­force­ment feas­ib­il­ity study.

A Terms of ref­er­ence to define the pur­pose and struc­ture of the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group will be developed by NatureScot and the Park Author­ity and organ­isa­tions and indi­vidu­als will be invited to join the group accordingly.

Gov­ernance and management

graph TD
    A[Programme Board] --> B[NatureScot, Cairngorms National Park Authority, Scottish Forestry and Forestry and Land Scotland responsible for enabling and assessing delivery.]
    A --> C[Stakeholders]
    C --> D[Responsible for delivering actions, monitoring impact, gathering data and securing funding where appropriate.]
    A --> E[Scientific Advisory Group]
    E --> F[Responsible for developing and delivering a research and monitoring plan to inform adaptive management and measure impact.]

Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group

Formed in 1994, the Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group, provided a cent­ral for­um for a range of stake­hold­ers to dis­cuss caper­cail­lie mat­ters. Chaired by the Park Author­ity, the group was set up to imple­ment the Spe­cies Action Plan for Caper­cail­lie with­in the UK Biod­iversity Action Plan and was instru­ment­al in devel­op­ing and deliv­er­ing the 2001 FCS Chal­lenge Fund, the 2002 – 2007 EU Caper­cail­lie LIFE Pro­ject, and the 2007 – 2012 Spe­cies Action Frame­work. Whilst the group has con­tin­ued to meet since 2012, the mem­ber­ship has reduced.

This plan provides an oppor­tun­ity to rein­vig­or­ate and realign efforts to save caper­cail­lie draw­ing on the full breadth of part­ners across the pub­lic, private and third sec­tor as high­lighted by the list of stake­hold­ers over­leaf. As the remain­ing mem­bers of the Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group can act­ively con­trib­ute their expert­ise as part of that wider stake­hold­er group, the Park Author­ity will cease to Chair the Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group and instead pri­or­it­ise col­lab­or­a­tion with the full breadth of partners.

Stake­hold­ers

The caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in the Nation­al Park extends across approx­im­ately 30 land­hold­ings. The key stake­hold­ers for this plan are those who own, man­age or rep­res­ent the interests of those land­hold­ings; those who rep­res­ent recre­ation­al groups rel­ev­ant to those land­hold­ings; and those who man­age pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary fund­ing mech­an­isms rel­ev­ant to activ­it­ies in this plan. Those stake­hold­ers include:

  • Aber­deen­shire Trail Association
  • Abergel­die Estate
  • Aigas Field Centre (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Anagach Woods Trust
  • Aquila Wild­life and Nature CIC (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Arc Guid­ing (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Atholl Estate
  • Bad­aguish Out­door Centre
  • Bad­den­gorm Wood
  • Badenoch and Strath­spey Trail Association
  • Bal­lo­gie Estate
  • Bal­mor­al Estate
  • BASC Scot­land
  • BirdGuides
  • Bird­ing Ecosse (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Bird­ing Eco­tours (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Bird’s Wild­life & Nature (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Bird­watch­ing and Wild­life Club (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Bird­watch­ing Trips (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Birse Com­munity Trust
  • Cairngorms Bird­ing (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
  • Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
  • Cairngorms Run­ners
  • Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group
  • Cawdor Estate
  • CON­FOR
  • Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scotland
  • Dor­back Estate
  • Dun­echt Estates
  • East Cairngorms Moor­land Partnership
  • Fin­zean Estate
  • Forestry and Land Scotland
  • Foun­tains Forestry
  • Game and Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Trust
  • Glen­more Lodge
  • Glen­muick Estate
  • Glen Tanar Estate
  • High­land Quiet­life (Lek It Be Champion)
  • High­land Wild­life (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Inver­cauld Estate
  • Instinct (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Llag­gan­lia Out­door Centre
  • Mar Estate
  • Mar Lodge Estate
  • Moray Estates
  • Moun­tain­eer­ing Scotland
  • Nat­ur­al­ist Jour­neys (Lek It Be Champion)
  • NatureScot
  • Nature­Trek (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Nor­folk Bird­ing (Lek It Be Champion)
  • North East Adven­ture Tourism
  • Ori­ole Bird­ing (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Police Scot­land
  • Ram­blers Scotland
  • Rare Bird Alert
  • Rothiemurchus
  • RSPB
  • Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety of Scot­land (RZSS)
  • Scot Moun­tain Hol­i­days (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Scot­tish Caper­cail­lie Group
  • Scot­tish Forestry
  • Scot­tish Game­keep­ers Association
  • Scot­tish Ornithologist’s Club
  • Scot­tish Ori­enteer­ing Association
  • Scot­tish Woodlands
  • Scot­ways
  • Seafield and Strath­spey Estates
  • Spey­side Wild­life (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Tombain Wood
  • Tulchan Estate
  • Uni­ver­sity of Aberdeen
  • Uni­ver­sity of Glasgow
  • Uni­ver­sity of St Andrews
  • Wild­land Limited
  • Wild Dis­cov­ery (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Wild Scot­land
  • Wings Bird­ing Tours (Lek It Be Champion)
  • Wood­lands For Sale
  • Volun­teer Cairngorms

Research and mon­it­or­ing plan

A Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group will devel­op and over­see a research and mon­it­or­ing plan to assess the effect­ive­ness of the man­age­ment actions with­in this Emer­gency Plan. The crit­ic­al ques­tion being — are the pos­it­ive influ­ences of the man­age­ment actions suf­fi­cient to increase the UK caper­cail­lie population.

An Integ­rated Pop­u­la­tion Mod­el will be key to answer­ing this ques­tion by enabling his­tor­ic­al sur­vey data to be com­bined with new evid­ence e.g. improve­ment on nest or chick sur­viv­al in response to diver­sion­ary feed­ing, or juven­ile sur­viv­al in response to fence remov­al. Using this data, the mod­el can pre­dict the future tra­ject­ory of the UK caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion and inform adapt­ive man­age­ment and the pri­or­it­isa­tion of actions and fund­ing where neces­sary. The Caper­cail­lie Integ­rated Pop­u­la­tion Mod­el developed by the Uni­ver­sity of Glas­gow is par­tic­u­larly well-suited for this task and will be adop­ted to annu­ally review and update this Emer­gency Plan.

Find­ings, key insights and recom­mend­a­tions from inter­im data ana­lys­is will be fed from the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group to the Pro­gramme Board on a rolling basis to enable timely adjust­ments to strategies as needed. New sci­entif­ic find­ings may also identi­fy a need to adjust approaches, and the research and mon­it­or­ing plan will be reviewed and updated as required to reflect adap­ted approaches and incor­por­ate new information.

CaperMap will be used to present research and mon­it­or­ing data spa­tially and in an access­ible format to enable a col­lect­ive under­stand­ing of pro­gress and where adap­ted approaches are required. CaperMap has already proven effect­ive as a com­mu­nic­a­tion and plan­ning tool with­in the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project.

Fun­drais­ing strategy

Deliv­er­ing caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion at a land­scape scale will require effect­ive part­ner­ship work­ing, par­tic­u­larly in secur­ing fund­ing. Giv­en the scale of the task and lim­ited Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment resources, it is essen­tial to blend vari­ous fund­ing streams to imple­ment the actions in this plan and accel­er­ate delivery.

Key Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment grant pro­grammes, includ­ing the Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS), Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund (NRF), and Peat­land ACTION, form the core of fund­ing for caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. These grants will play a pivotal role in the blen­ded fund­ing strategy, help­ing to drive invest­ment from non-gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tions and private sources.

The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject is a proven example of how a blen­ded fin­ance mod­el can suc­cess­fully deliv­er bene­fits for caper­cail­lie. The pro­ject budget con­sti­tuted over £900,000 of invest­ment from private, pub­lic and char­it­able sources, along with over £100,000 of volun­teer time. This com­bined resource lever­aged £2 mil­lion from the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund and attrac­ted addi­tion­al fund­ing, bring­ing the total invest­ment to over £3 mil­lion. The Emer­gency Plan’s fun­drais­ing strategy focuses on scal­ing up this approach.

The actions out­lined in this plan will deliv­er eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tion and expand our nat­ive pine­woods. This will bene­fit caper­cail­lie while also provid­ing broad­er envir­on­ment­al gains. FGS, NRF and Peat­land ACTION fund­ing are all focused on actions that deliv­er the widest bene­fits, thus ensur­ing value for pub­lic money. Those bene­fits include sup­port­ing unique eco­sys­tems, enhan­cing biod­iversity, boost­ing nat­ur­al car­bon sinks, redu­cing flood and wild­fire risks, and advan­cing sus­tain­able pine forest management.

The Emer­gency Plan presents sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­it­ies for NGOs, private sec­tor entit­ies and loc­al com­munit­ies to use Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment grants to lever­age addi­tion­al fund­ing sources which they are best placed to access. A col­lect­ive agree­ment among stake­hold­ers assures fun­ders that the inter­ven­tions in this plan are the right pri­or­it­ies, offer­ing the greatest return on invest­ment for caper­cail­lie and the wider nat­ur­al envir­on­ment. Scotland’s icon­ic caper­cail­lie also provides a strong pro­file for fun­drais­ing efforts, which should attract fur­ther dona­tions. Addi­tion­al private fin­ance oppor­tun­it­ies are being act­ively explored. How­ever, key risks include con­straints on ini­tial (Year 1) fund­ing which could lim­it the poten­tial to quickly unlock oth­er fund­ing streams. Tar­get­ing lim­ited Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing effect­ively will help mit­ig­ate this risk.

The table over­leaf provides an over­view of the estim­ated cost for deliv­er­ing this plan and the avail­ab­il­ity of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing for Year 1. Once stand­ard­ised hab­it­at assess­ments have been con­duc­ted across the caper­cail­lie range with­in the Nation­al Park to identi­fy where the actions out­lined can provide the greatest bene­fit, more spe­cif­ic cost­ings can be developed.

Estim­ated total budget 2025 – 2030Estim­ated budget 2025 / 2026 (Year 1)Pub­lic funds avail­able 2025 / 2026 (Year 1)
Adapt­ive man­age­ment and meas­ur­ing impact
Research and mon­it­or­ing plan To inform adapt­ive man­age­ment and to meas­ure the impact of inter­ven­tions. Includes data col­lec­tion and analysis.£250,000£50,000£15,000 Con­tri­bu­tion to Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Officer post
Expand­ing and improv­ing habitat
Wood­land expan­sion plan­ning Increase the amount of new nat­ive wood­land planned around caper­cail­lie forests where oppor­tun­it­ies exist for expan­sion and improved connectivity.£200,000£100,000£100,000
Wood­land restruc­tur­ing Increase the struc­tur­al diversity and adop­tion of con­tinu­ous cov­er forestry in plant­a­tions where oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.£1.1m£500,000FGS SMF Nat­ive Wood­land for deer man­age­ment and FGS SMF WIG for nat­ur­al regeneration
Eli­gible for FGS as a con­tri­bu­tion to costs with addi­tion­al fund­ing from NGO and private sources required to achieve the estim­ated budget. **
Wood­land graz­ing Enable wood­land graz­ing with cattle in the Nation­al Park where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.£4.36m£871,000FGS Sus­tain­able Man­age­ment of Forests: Grazing **
Rob­ocut­ting Enable rob­ocut­ting where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.£4.23m£845,000FGS WIG: Hab­it­at and species **
Forest bog res­tor­a­tion Enable forest bog res­tor­a­tion where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.£1.4m£280,000£280,000
Redu­cing the impacts of predation
Diver­sion­ary feed­ing Deliv­er a 4‑year pro­gramme (2026 – 2030) of diver­sion­ary feed­ing on all sites in the Nation­al Park with suit­able hen records.£260,000£65,000£0
Mon­it­or­ing vole pop­u­la­tions Sur­vey vole abund­ance annu­ally using vole sign index across the core caper­cail­lie range to inform the deploy­ment of pred­at­or man­age­ment actions.£97,000£19,400£0
Leth­al con­trol of foxes and crows Assess the cur­rent activ­ity of pred­at­ors in rela­tion to caper­cail­lie hen dens­it­ies and breed­ing per­form­ance in areas where pred­at­or man­age­ment strategies are in place.£5,000£5,000£0
Mon­it­or­ing pine marten pop­u­la­tions Estab­lish a reli­able baseline for pine marten pop­u­la­tions in Strath­spey to mon­it­or changes in activ­ity over time and track pop­u­la­tion trends.£60,000£25,000£25,000
Remov­ing and mark­ing fences
Fence remov­al Reduce the net amount of fen­cing in core caper­cail­lie areas.£490,000£300,000FGS SMF Nat­ive Wood­land for deer management **
Redu­cing disturbance
Reduce recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance in the pri­or­ity areas rel­ev­ant to caper­cail­lie out­lined in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan (2024 – 2028).£250,000£40,000£40,000
Caper­cail­lie monitoring
Mon­it­or­ing pro­ductiv­ity Enable the devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of meth­ods for mon­it­or­ing caper­cail­lie pro­ductiv­ity that gath­er neces­sary eco­lo­gic­al data at scale but do not require the use of dogs.£50,000£10,000£0
Mon­it­or­ing leks Enable the devel­op­ment of more robust tech­niques to mon­it­or tar­get lek sites.£50,000£10,000£0
Mon­it­or­ing mor­bid­ity and mor­tal­ity Devel­op and imple­ment an infec­tious dis­ease sur­veil­lance mon­it­or­ing pro­gram for caper­cail­lie and sym­patric Gal­li­formes to identi­fy factors affect­ing caper­cail­lie mor­bid­ity, mor­tal­ity and repro­duct­ive success.£5,000£5,000£0
Rein­force­ment feasibility
Rein­force­ment feas­ib­il­ity Eval­u­ate the feas­ib­il­ity of rein­for­cing the Scot­tish caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion by intro­du­cing birds from Europe and per­form­ing exchanges with­in the Scot­tish caper­cail­lie population.£40,000£40,000£0

3. Expand­ing and improv­ing habitat

Wood­land expan­sion planning

It is a tar­get with­in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan to cre­ate a min­im­um of 35,000 hec­tares of new wood­land cov­er by 2045, includ­ing a min­im­um of 80% nat­ive wood­land and 10,000 hec­tares of nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion without plant­ing. It is also a tar­get to expand wood­land by a min­im­um of 7,000 hec­tares by 2027 through the deliv­ery of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy and tar­geted grant schemes. Whilst plan­ning and approv­al for wood­land expan­sion takes time and will not pro­duce imme­di­ate res­ults; by influ­en­cing plans now we can increase wood­land cov­er in core caper­cail­lie areas and ensure the right type of wood­land in the right place that caper­cail­lie can access in future.

Object­ive

Increase the amount of new nat­ive wood­land planned around caper­cail­lie forests where oppor­tun­it­ies exist for expan­sion and improved connectivity.

Actions by 2030

  1. Work with all land man­agers to sup­port and enable wood­land expan­sion plans where nat­ive wood­land expan­sion will deliv­er the greatest bene­fits for capercaillie.
  2. Use deer man­age­ment plans to min­im­ise the use of fen­cing as part of wood­land expan­sion plans in caper­cail­lie areas.

Meas­ures of success

  • Nat­ive wood­land expan­sion plans in place where all viable oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit caper­cail­lie in the Nation­al Park and that favour estab­lish­ment through deer man­age­ment and remov­ing redund­ant fences.
  • Increase in nat­ive wood­land expan­sion by nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion and a net reduc­tion in fen­cing where oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.

Part­ners (along­side the Park Author­ity and NatureScot)

  • Land man­agers in tar­get areas
  • Scot­tish Forestry
  • CON­FOR

Wood­land restructuring

Caper­cail­lie prefer con­i­fer­ous forests that are open enough to allow plenty of blae­berry to grow, with a mix of bogs, patches of tree regen­er­a­tion and oth­er shrub and ground cov­er. This vari­ety is crit­ic­al, par­tic­u­larly in the caper­cail­lie brood rear­ing sea­son when access to bog cot­ton improves the breed­ing con­di­tion of hens, access to inver­teb­rates is essen­tial for chicks, and shrub and ground cov­er provides pro­tec­tion from pred­at­ors. Wood­land man­age­ment should try to recre­ate these con­di­tions, par­tic­u­larly in plant­a­tions which account for much of the hab­it­at across the core caper­cail­lie range.

Whilst plant­a­tions may have some fea­tures like mature trees, they often lack oth­ers. Thin­ning, winch­ing-over trees, small-scale felling to remove non-nat­ive con­ifers and effect­ive deer man­age­ment can pro­mote regen­er­a­tion, enable more light to reach the forest floor and rap­idly provide the vari­ety of hab­it­at in plant­a­tions that caper­cail­lie need. Com­pared to a clear fell sys­tem, employ­ing these tech­niques in plant­a­tions also main­tains hab­it­at that could sup­port more caper­cail­lie and avoids the need for fen­cing restock­ing sites. With ongo­ing deer man­age­ment and forestry oper­a­tions planned in caper­cail­lie areas, it is essen­tial that up to date, good prac­tice guid­ance and coordin­ated man­age­ment is in place, and strengthened where needed, to pro­tect caper­cail­lie and max­im­ise oppor­tun­it­ies for the species.

Object­ive

Increase the struc­tur­al diversity and adop­tion of con­tinu­ous cov­er forestry in plant­a­tions where oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.

Actions by 2030

  1. Pro­duce new good prac­tice guid­ance for forest man­agers to replace the 2003 ​‘Forest Man­age­ment for Caper­cail­lie: An Illus­trated Guide for Forest Man­agers’. Include new and updated inform­a­tion, e.g. key times, dates, dis­tances and man­aging storm dam­age, to ensure a con­sist­ent approach across all caper­cail­lie areas.
  2. Pro­mote the new good prac­tice guid­ance and the use of Deer Man­age­ment Plans to forest man­agers, agents and all rel­ev­ant agency staff and departments.
  3. Identi­fy all thin­ning and felling oper­a­tions planned in core caper­cail­lie areas with­in the Nation­al Park and work with Scot­tish Forestry and the respect­ive land man­agers to ensure they adhere to the new good prac­tice guidance.

Meas­ures of success

  • More plant­a­tions in the Nation­al Park man­aged in a way that recre­ates the diverse hab­it­at required by capercaillie.
  • Thin­ning and felling oper­a­tions in caper­cail­lie areas fol­low new good prac­tice guidance.
  • Increased caper­cail­lie usage of plantations.
  • High­er caper­cail­lie pro­ductiv­ity in plantations.

Part­ners (along­side the Park Author­ity and NatureScot)

  • Land man­agers in tar­get areas
  • Scot­tish Forestry
  • CON­FOR

Wood­land grazing

Seafield and Strath­spey Estates, Rothiemurchus Estate, Moray Estates and RSPB Aber­nethy all cur­rently under­take wood­land graz­ing with cattle to bene­fit caper­cail­lie and oth­er spe­cies. In Aber­nethy Forest, where ~1,000 hec­tares are grazed by cattle using Nofence col­lars, the graz­ing has pro­duced great­er vari­ety in struc­ture, includ­ing areas of heath­er die-back and recov­ery of blae­berry, track cre­ation for chicks and exposed min­er­al soil for dust­baths. From ad-hoc obser­va­tions, caper­cail­lie usage of the grazed areas has increased sig­ni­fic­antly. With­in the main grazed area, the count of lekking males increased from 3 in 2019 to 10 in 2024. Hen and chick num­bers have also ris­en. The Nofence GPS col­lars allow the herd to be con­trolled with­in a vir­tu­al bound­ary, remov­ing the need for fences.

Object­ive

Enable wood­land graz­ing with cattle in the Nation­al Park where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.

Actions by 2030

  1. Identi­fy and map tar­get areas in the Nation­al Park where wood­land graz­ing stands to deliv­er the greatest bene­fit for caper­cail­lie, and where evid­ence sug­gests the inter­ven­tion is already bene­fit­ting capercaillie.
  2. Util­ise oppor­tun­it­ies for addi­tion­al sup­port for wood­land graz­ing under the cur­rent FGS budget and as part of the FGS review in 2025⁄26.
  3. Secure agree­ments with loc­al gra­zi­ers to enable more wood­land grazing.
  4. Invest­ig­ate the feas­ib­il­ity, risks and bene­fits of graz­ing non-com­mer­cial / con­ser­va­tion herds in caper­cail­lie areas.
  5. Gath­er and ana­lyse data from wood­land graz­ing and con­trol sites, using the Wood­land Herb­i­vore Impact Assess­ment where appro­pri­ate, to build an evid­ence base for the inter­ven­tion and to inform adapt­ive management.
  6. Use the evid­ence base to inform fund­ing streams for wood­land graz­ing from 2025⁄26 onwards, e.g. optim­um scales of deliv­ery and pay­ment rates to enable max­im­um bene­fit for biod­iversity / value for money.
  7. Pro­duce good prac­tice guid­ance about wood­land graz­ing for caper­cail­lie, ensur­ing align­ment with the Wood­land Graz­ing Tool­box developed by Scot­tish Forestry, NatureScot and Forestry and Land Scotland.

Meas­ures of success

  • Cattle graz­ing in wood­lands where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist that favour capercaillie.
  • No increase in fen­cing because of cattle graz­ing in woodlands.
  • High­er caper­cail­lie pro­ductiv­ity in wood­lands where cattle graz­ing is in place.
  • Increased inver­teb­rate bio­mass in wood­lands where cattle graz­ing is in place.

Part­ners (along­side the Park Author­ity and NatureScot)

  • Land man­agers in tar­get areas and cur­rently under­tak­ing wood­land grazing
  • Scot­tish Forestry

Key points on cur­rent feas­ib­il­ity and delivery

  1. Wood­land graz­ing is eli­gible for FGS fund­ing at £100 per hec­tare for a max­im­um of 100 hec­tares per 5‑year peri­od sub­ject to a wood­land graz­ing man­age­ment plan and mon­it­or­ing. Fund­ing is lim­ited and does not meet cur­rent demand.
  2. Sites will vary, but to con­tin­ue achiev­ing the anec­dot­al bene­fits to caper­cail­lie in Aber­nethy Forest it is expec­ted that an increased area requires graz­ing for around 6 months per year for 3 years with about 100 cattle.
  3. The deliv­ery cost is estim­ated to be ~£67 per hec­tare per year for Nofence col­lars (assum­ing a 5‑year lifespan for the col­lars), feed and staff time. Addi­tion­al funds may also be required to cov­er start-up costs which can be sig­ni­fic­ant, e.g. hand­ling facilities.
  4. SSSI con­sent and a Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al (HRA) is required for wood­land graz­ing in pro­tec­ted areas, includ­ing the use of pro­phy­lact­ic vet medication.
  5. Arrange­ments for man­aging cattle vary from a ded­ic­ated stock­per­son employed by the landown­er to the gra­zi­er tak­ing full respons­ib­il­ity. Dif­fer­ent approaches can lead to dif­fer­ent out­comes in terms of costs and eco­lo­gic­al impact.

Rob­ocut­ting

Keep­ing some heath­er short is an import­ant aspect of provid­ing hab­it­at in which chicks can thrive. Thick, tall heath­er is dif­fi­cult for young birds to move through and find the insects they need. A small-scale tri­al of heath­er cut­ting in Aber­nethy Forest in the early 2000s demon­strated a more than doub­ling of blae­berry cov­er and inver­teb­rate bio­mass and a 7‑fold increase in caper­cail­lie usage. Around 200ha of heath­er has now been cut in Aber­nethy Forest using a rob­ocut­ter. Seafield and Strath­spey Estates and Rothiemurchus Estate have also recently under­taken rob­ocut­ting for caper­cail­lie. Com­pared to strim­ming or using a flail and tract­or, a rob­ocut­ter can nav­ig­ate com­plex pine­wood ter­rain to cut a lar­ger area more quickly, provid­ing instant bene­fits for broods. Rob­ocut­ters can also cut into the moss lay­er and mulch mater­i­al pro­mot­ing faster recov­ery of blaeberry.

Object­ive

Enable rob­ocut­ting where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.

Actions by 2030

  1. Identi­fy and map tar­get areas in the Nation­al Park where rob­ocut­ting stands to deliv­er the greatest bene­fit for caper­cail­lie and where evid­ence sug­gests the inter­ven­tion is already provid­ing bene­fits to capercaillie.
  2. Util­ise oppor­tun­it­ies under the cur­rent FGS budget and seek improved sup­port as part of the FGS review in 2025⁄26 includ­ing updated / more appro­pri­ate pay­ment rates for rob­ocut­ting in tar­get areas.
  3. Gath­er and ana­lyse data from rob­ocut­ting and con­trol sites to build an evid­ence base for the intervention.
  4. Use the evid­ence base to inform fund­ing streams for rob­ocut­ting from 2026 onwards, e.g. optim­um scales of deliv­ery and pay­ment rates to enable max­im­um bene­fit for biod­iversity / value for money.
  5. Pro­duce good prac­tice guid­ance for land man­agers and con­tract­ors about rob­ocut­ting to bene­fit caper­cail­lie and wider biodiversity.

Meas­ures of success

  • Rob­ocut­ting under­taken where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist that favour capercaillie.
  • Increased caper­cail­lie usage of rob­ocut areas.
  • High­er caper­cail­lie pro­ductiv­ity in rob­ocut areas.

Part­ners (along­side the Park Author­ity and NatureScot)

  • Land man­agers in tar­get areas and those cur­rently under­tak­ing robocutting
  • Scot­tish Forestry

Key points on cur­rent feas­ib­il­ity and delivery

  1. Based on rob­ocut­ting in Aber­nethy Forest where sev­er­al patches have been cut with­in a wider area, it is estim­ated that the tech­nique can bene­fit caper­cail­lie across 3 times the area actu­ally cut.
  2. Rob­ocut­ting patches with­in a wider area allows for some cov­er and con­tinu­ity whilst the blae­berry car­pet forms after cut­ting; a pro­cess that can take up to 3 years.
  3. The bene­fits of rob­ocut­ting can be expec­ted to last for around ten years until heath­er re-dom­in­ates. Main­ten­ance by fol­low-up cattle graz­ing could extend the impact.
  4. Cost per hec­tare phys­ic­ally cut is around £870 plus ~£100 per hec­tare for time spent man­aging con­tract­ors. As the bene­fits to caper­cail­lie extend across ~3 times the area cut, the total cost is around £325 per hec­tare benefitted.
  5. Rob­ocut­ting qual­i­fies as a heath­er swip­ing tech­nique eli­gible for FGS fund­ing. The pay­ment rate in the cur­rent scheme is £210 p/​ha.
  6. SSSI con­sent and an HRA is required for rob­ocut­ting in pro­tec­ted areas.
  7. Up to 3 con­tract­ors with rob­ocut­ters / flail­bots are cur­rently able to under­take work in the Cairngorms.

Forest bog restoration

In a chan­ging cli­mate, forest bogs stand to be an increas­ingly cru­cial hab­it­at dur­ing exten­ded dry spells and are crit­ic­al in the caper­cail­lie brood rear­ing sea­son when access to cot­ton grass in early spring improves the breed­ing con­di­tion of hens and access to inver­teb­rates is essen­tial for chicks. Through the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject a pro­gramme of drain block­ing car­ried out on Bal­mor­al Estate has restored at least 90 hec­tares of forest bog to bene­fit caper­cail­lie. The work was under­taken by volun­teers work­ing with Estate staff. Sim­il­arly, with­in the Cairngorms Con­nect part­ner­ship area, over 70 hec­tares of bog wood­land has been restored. In addi­tion to the bene­fits to caper­cail­lie, forest bogs are a nat­ur­al car­bon sink, sup­port unique eco­sys­tems and biod­iversity, reduce flood risk, improve water qual­ity in streams and rivers and reduce wild­fire risk.

Object­ive

Enable forest bog res­tor­a­tion where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist to bene­fit capercaillie.

Actions by 2030

  1. Invest­ig­ate the feas­ib­il­ity, risks and bene­fits of using LID­AR to map drains (where required) in caper­cail­lie areas in the Nation­al Park.
  2. Identi­fy pri­or­ity loc­a­tions in caper­cail­lie areas to block drains before the 2025 breed­ing season.
  3. Tar­get Peat­land ACTION fund­ing to block drains in pri­or­ity loc­a­tions to enable land­scape-scale res­tor­a­tion of forest bogs.

Meas­ure of success

  • Forest bog res­tor­a­tion under­taken where all oppor­tun­it­ies exist that favour capercaillie.
  • Increased caper­cail­lie usage of forest where bogs have been restored.
  • High­er caper­cail­lie pro­ductiv­ity in forests where bogs have been restored.

Part­ners (along­side the Park Author­ity and NatureScot)

  • Land man­agers in pri­or­ity locations
  • Peat­land ACTION Teams
  • Scot­tish Forestry

Key points on cur­rent feas­ib­il­ity and delivery

  1. Drain block­ing is eli­gible for FGS fund­ing, with con­tri­bu­tion towards costs vary­ing depend­ing on the dis­tance between drains and their width.
  2. Most drains are part of a sys­tem requir­ing a hol­ist­ic approach to effect­ively restore the area to forest bog. Peat­land ACTION fund­ing sup­ports a hol­ist­ic approach and includes a wider range of inter­ven­tions to enable res­tor­a­tion com­pared to FGS. Fund­ing can how­ever be restric­ted if the work is eli­gible through FGS.

4. Redu­cing the impacts of predation

Diver­sion­ary feeding

From 2021 – 2023, the Cairngorms Con­nect Pred­at­or Pro­ject under­took a diver­sion­ary feed­ing tri­al which increased the chances of arti­fi­cial nest sur­viv­al by 83%. When diver­sion­ary feed­ing is present, early ana­lys­is of real broods also indic­ates a high­er chance of detect­ing a hen with chicks instead of a bar­ren hen. The research is now pub­lished in the Brit­ish Eco­lo­gic­al Society’s Journ­al of Applied Eco­logy and diver­sion­ary feed­ing is part of routine oper­a­tions for Wild­land Lim­ited, Forestry and Land Scot­land Glen­more and RSPB Abernethy.

In Deeside, facil­it­ated by the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject, Inver­cauld Estate, Glen Tanar Estate, Forestry and Land Scot­land Pan­na­niach and Cam­bus o’May, RSPB Cran­nach, NatureScot Muir of Din­net and Bal­mor­al Estate are car­ry­ing out diver­sion­ary feed­ing. Abergel­die Estate, Fin­zean Estate, Birse Com­munity Trust and Bal­lo­gie Estate also engaged although did not qual­i­fy for feed­ing sites in 2024 as no signs of hen activ­ity were found dur­ing cold search­ing. If hen signs are found in future, it would indic­ate an oppor­tun­ity to begin diver­sion­ary feed­ing. Out with the Nation­al Park, Moray Estates have also begun diver­sion­ary feeding.

The ori­gin­al Cairngorms Con­nect Pred­at­or Pro­ject tri­al took place across 60km² of sampling sites across the Cairngorms Con­nect part­ner­ship area in Badenoch and Strath­spey. It aimed to eval­u­ate diver­sion­ary feed­ing as a man­age­ment inter­ven­tion to reduce depred­a­tion on nests of caper­cail­lie. The tri­al saw feed­ing sites iden­ti­fied around suit­able signs of hen activ­ity. The sites were stocked with ~10kg of deer parts per fort­night over an 8‑week peri­od from the end of April to the end of June.

The feed­ing sites were mon­itored for pred­at­or activ­ity. Arti­fi­cial caper­cail­lie nests near each feed­ing site were also mon­itored. The arti­fi­cial nests were deployed in and out­side of feed­ing zones. Over two years of sampling, ana­lys­is showed that the chance of an arti­fi­cial nest sur­viv­ing to 28 days (hatch age) was 40% in con­trol (unfed) sites and 73% in fed sites; an increase of nest sur­viv­al of 83%. This was primar­ily due to a reduc­tion in the like­li­hood of pine marten, the main pred­at­or of arti­fi­cial nests in the study, con­sum­ing or cach­ing eggs and a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in arti­fi­cial nest pred­a­tion by badgers, with vari­ab­il­ity year on year.

Object­ive

Deliv­er a 4‑year pro­gramme (2026 – 2030) of diver­sion­ary feed­ing on all sites in the Nation­al Park with suit­able hen records.

Actions by 2030

  1. All land­hold­ings report signs and sight­ings of hens through the Caper­cail­lie Sight­ings and Signs App to help identi­fy areas where diver­sion­ary feed­ing stands to deliv­er the greatest bene­fit for capercaillie.
  2. Cap­ture the learn­ing from sites that delivered diver­sion­ary feed­ing for caper­cail­lie in 2024 and sites where diver­sion­ary feed­ing was not under­taken. Where neces­sary, update approaches for 2025 in response.
  3. Pro­duce good prac­tice guid­ance about diver­sion­ary feed­ing for capercaillie.
  4. Deliv­er a pro­gramme of train­ing and sup­port for sites under­tak­ing diver­sion­ary feeding.
  5. Secure agree­ments with own­ers of deer lar­ders, game deal­ers and stalk­ers to access car­ri­on / waste mater­i­al to sup­port diver­sion­ary feeding.
  6. Recruit and train a team of volun­teers to assist with the col­lec­tion and deliv­ery of car­ri­on to sites; estab­lish­ing and restock­ing feed­ing sites; deploy­ing and man­aging mon­it­or­ing cam­er­as; and pro­cessing and ana­lys­ing images.
  7. Deliv­er diver­sion­ary feed­ing in 2025 on sites with suit­able hen records. Cap­ture the learn­ing from all sites and update approaches where necessary.
  8. Deliv­er a 4‑year programme (