Item5Appendix2HRA20190120DET

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 5 Appendix 2 11/10/2019

AGENDA ITEM 5

APPENDIX 2

2019/0120/DET

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL

SNH NATURA APPRAIS­AL PRO­FORMA: CON­STRUC­TION OF 47 HOUSES AND FLATS ON LAND 80M SE OF 2 CARR PLACE, CAR­RBRIDGE Apprais­al in Rela­tion to Reg­u­la­tion 48 of the Con­ser­va­tion (Nat­ur­al Hab­it­ats, &C.) Reg­u­la­tions 1994 as Amended¹ (Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Appraisal)

Case­work Man­age­ment Sys­tem Ref. CDM155382

NATURA SITE DETAILS

Name of Natura site(s) poten­tially affected:

1. Aber­nethy Forest SPA (Cur­rent)
2. Anagach Woods SPA (Cur­rent)
3. Cairngorms SPA (Cur­rent)
4. Craigmore Wood SPA (Cur­rent)
5. Kin­veachy Forest SPA (Cur­rent)

Name of com­pon­ent SSSI if relevant:

1. Aber­nethy Forest SPA: Aber­nethy Forest SSSI
2. Anagach Woods SPA: Anagach Woods is not des­ig­nated as a SSSI
3. Cairngorms SPA: Glen­more Forest, Cairngorms, North­ern Cor­ries and North Rothiemurchus Pine­wood SSSIS.
4. Craigmore Wood SPA: there is no SSSI under­pin­ning Craigmore Wood
5. Kin­veachy Forest SPA: Kin­veachy Forest SSSI

Natura qual­i­fy­ing interest(s) & wheth­er pri­or­ity/non-pri­or­ity:

1. Aber­nethy Forest SPA Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogal­lus) Osprey (Pan­di­on hali­aetus) Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scotica)

2. Anagach Woods SPA Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

3. Cairngorms SPA Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogal­lus) Mer­lin (Falco colum­bari­us) Osprey (Pan­di­on hali­aetus) Golden eagle (Aquila chry­sae­tos) Dot­ter­el (Charad­ri­us mor­inel­lus) Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scot­ica) Per­eg­rine (Falco peregrinus)

4. Craigmore Wood SPA Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

5. Kin­veachy Forest SPA Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scotica)

¹ Or, where rel­ev­ant, under reg­u­la­tion 61 of The Con­ser­va­tion of Hab­it­ats and Spe­cies Reg­u­la­tions 2010 as amended, or reg­u­la­tion 25 of The Off­shore Mar­ine Con­ser­va­tion (Nat­ur­al Hab­it­ats, &c.) Reg­u­la­tions 2007 as amended.

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Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

1. 2. 3. Con­ser­va­tion object­ives for qual­i­fy­ing interests: Aber­nethy Forest SPA To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies (lis­ted below), or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; and to ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term: • Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site • Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies • Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the site Osprey (Pan­di­on hali­aetus) Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scot­ica) Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

Anagach Woods SPA To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies (lis­ted below), or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; and to ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term: • Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site • Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies • Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the site Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

Cairngorms SPA To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies (lis­ted below), or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; and to ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term: • Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site • Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies • Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the site Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scot­ica) Dot­ter­el (Charad­ri­us mor­inel­lus) Golden eagle (Aquila chry­sae­tos) Per­eg­rine (Falco per­eg­rinus) Osprey (Pan­di­on hali­aetus) Mer­lin (Falco colum­bari­us) Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

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4. 5. Craigmore Wood SPA To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies (lis­ted below), or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; and to ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term: • Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site • Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies • Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the site Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

Kin­veachy Forest SPA To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies (lis­ted below), or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; and to ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long term: • Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site • Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies • No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies • Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the site Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogal­lus) Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scotica)

STAGE 1: WHAT IS THE PLAN OR PRO­JECT? Pro­pos­al title: Con­struc­tion of 47 houses and flats, asso­ci­ated roads and foot­ways at land 80m SE of 2 Carr Place, Carrbridge

Date con­sulta­tion sent: Date con­sulta­tion received: Name of con­sul­tee: Name of com­pet­ent author­ity: Type of case:

3 May 2019 3 May 2019 CNPA (plan­ning applic­a­tion called in) CNPA Planning

Details of pro­pos­al (inc. loc­a­tion, tim­ing, methods):

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The applic­a­tion is for 45 houses and flats, with asso­ci­ated roads and foot­ways. The site lies on Carr Road to the east of Car­rbridge, with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The applic­a­tion will provide mixed hous­ing, with two, three, four and five bed­room bun­ga­lows, flats and villas.

The loc­a­tion of the site is shown on the map below, based on inform­a­tion provided by the developers. It is at NH 914226.

[Map]

The dis­tance between the devel­op­ment and the sur­round­ing SPAs is shown below. The dis­tances are approx­im­ately: Anagach Woods SPA: 12 km Cairngorms SPA 9.0 km Kin­veachy Forest SPA 3 km Aber­nethy Forest SPA 5 km Craigmore Wood SPA 9 km

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[Map]

STAGE 2: IS THE PLAN OR PRO­JECT DIR­ECTLY CON­NEC­TED WITH OR NECES­SARY TO SITE MAN­AGE­MENT FOR NATURE CONSERVATION?

No.

STAGE 3: IS THE PLAN OR PRO­JECT (EITHER ALONE OR IN COM­BIN­A­TION WITH OTH­ER PLANS OR PRO­JECTS) LIKELY TO HAVE A SIG­NI­FIC­ANT EFFECT ON THE SITE?

1.Capercaillie.

Yes. The pro­pos­al risks increas­ing dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie, and dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie can have a knock-on effect on the pop­u­la­tion in the SPAs. For this reas­on, there is a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect.

2.Scottish cross­bill, osprey, dot­ter­el, golden eagle, mer­lin, osprey and per­eg­rine falcon.

No. The pro­pos­al would have no effect, either dir­ect or indir­ect, on any of these spe­cies with­in the SPAs clas­si­fied for them.

Mit­ig­a­tion or modi­fic­a­tions required to avoid a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect & reas­ons for these:

Mit­ig­a­tion: Reason:

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STAGE 4: UNDER­TAKE AN APPRO­PRI­ATE ASSESS­MENT OF THE IMPLIC­A­TIONS FOR THE SITE IN VIEW OF ITS CON­SER­VA­TION OBJECTIVES

Effects of pro­pos­al on the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the SPAs

Con­ser­va­tion object­ive Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in site Dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the site Pro­pos­al The devel­op­ment would have no effect of the dis­tri­bu­tion of caper­cail­lie with­in any of the SPAs, because it is too far away from them. There would be no change in the dis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies because there would be no actions affect­ing habitat.

There would be no change in the struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cesses of the pine wood­land, because the devel­op­ment is a dis­tance away from the sites, and there would be no indir­ect effects. Dis­turb­ance is con­sidered below. This depends partly on the indir­ect effects of dis­turb­ance. This is Con­clu­sion No impact on the integ­rity of the site for this objective.

No impact on the integ­rity of the site for this objective.

No impact on the integ­rity of the site for this objective.

See below.

See below.

con­sidered below.

It is con­cluded that dis­turb­ance is the key issue poten­tially arising from this development.

Dis­turb­ance

The eco­lo­gic­al basis for assum­ing that caper­cail­lie are vul­ner­able to dis­turb­ance, and the effects of dis­turb­ance on a meta-pop­u­la­tion spe­cies, can be found in Appendix 1 and 3 below.

Car­rbridge has an estim­ated 792 people, based on the res­ults of the 2011 census by set­tle­ment zone (High­land Coun­cil 2014). Assum­ing an aver­age of three people per house­hold, the pro­posed 45 house­holds would lead to a likely increase of approx­im­ately 135 people. There is anoth­er hous­ing devel­op­ment in Car­rbridge cur­rently under­way with 25 units — assum­ing 2 people per house­hold on aver­age, this would add anoth­er 50 people. This gives a total of 977. The increase with both devel­op­ments is approx­im­ately 23%.

The map below show the net­work of paths close to the pro­posed devel­op­ment. Paths are shown in blue, the Sus­trans cycle route is shown in purple.

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[Map]

Foot­paths dir­ectly link with this devel­op­ment site and hence into the wider wood­land. There is a good net­work of inform­al paths in Carr Plant­a­tion, which would meet people’s needs for short and medi­um length walks. The wood­land is attract­ive and the paths pleas­ant to use.

The area around the pro­posed devel­op­ment site is not known to be used by caper­cail­lie, due to the intens­ity of exist­ing dis­turb­ance or unsuit­ab­il­ity of the hab­it­at. Short walks will there­fore not have any neg­at­ive effect on capercaillie.

There are addi­tion­al paths which are avail­able for longer walks, most of which do not go very close to caper­cail­lie areas. Those which do go close to areas used by caper­cail­lie have good tracks and there is no strong reas­on for people to leave the tracks.

For all these reas­ons, it is con­cluded that the poten­tial dis­turb­ance arising from this devel­op­ment is not likely to have any meas­ur­able effect on caper­cail­lie. There would there­fore be no impact on the integ­rity of the des­ig­nated sites.

STAGE 5: CAN IT BE ASCER­TAINED THAT THE PRO­POS­AL WILL NOT ADVERSELY AFFECT THE INTEG­RITY OF THE SITE?

It is con­cluded that there is no impact on the integ­rity of the SPAs from the proposed

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devel­op­ment, because people’s recre­ation­al needs would be met by the exist­ing net­work of high qual­ity paths and there would be no addi­tion­al dis­turb­ance arising from the development.

Mit­ig­a­tion or modi­fic­a­tions required to ensure adverse effects are avoided, & reas­ons for these.

Mit­ig­a­tion: Reason:

ADVICE SOUGHT

CONCLUSION/ADVICE IN RELA­TION TO PLAN OR PRO­JECT When SNH is advising the com­pet­ent authority

Natura mod­el response pos­i­tion: Likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect, but no impact on the integ­rity of the des­ig­nated sites.

Devel­op­ment man­age­ment response type: Advice only

Appraised by Date Checked by Date

Anne Elli­ott 17 May 2019

Appendix 1: Sens­it­iv­ity of caper­cail­lie to recre­ation­al disturbance

Text taken from HRA for Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan, see A2355975.

Dis­turb­ance can affect caper­cail­lie by redu­cing the avail­ab­il­ity of oth­er­wise suit­able hab­it­at (includ­ing hab­it­at used for roost­ing, feed­ing, nest­ing and brood rear­ing), dis­pla­cing the birds from leks, dis­rupt­ing beha­viour pat­terns and increas­ing the risk of pred­a­tion. These effects can occur sep­ar­ately or addit­ively. Caper­cail­lie are sens­it­ive to dis­turb­ance at all life stages but espe­cially so when attend­ing leks, incub­at­ing eggs (late April to mid-June) or rear­ing broods (late May — late August but crit­ic­ally dur­ing June and July when the chicks are small and depend­ent on the hen for warmth).

Research has recor­ded numer­ous examples of indi­vidu­als react­ing to dis­turb­ance, for example through short-term changes in beha­viour and long-term shifts in hab­it­at use, how­ever, pop­u­la­tion- level effects are dif­fi­cult to demon­strate so their import­ance remains unclear (Storch, 2013). Repor­ted responses include a decline in loc­al caper­cail­lie num­bers (Brenot et al., 1996 cited in Thiel et al., 2007) and aban­don­ment of lek sites (Labi­g­and & Muni­er, 1989 cited in Thiel et al., 2007).

Much of the con­tin­ent­al European research on this sub­ject has focussed on dis­turb­ance from off- path recre­ation­al use. A study of the beha­vi­our­al response of caper­cail­lie to off-trail hikers

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demon­strated that flush­ing dis­tance var­ied between male and female birds, vis­ib­il­ity of hiker, intens­ity of winter tour­ism, and hunt­ing pres­sure (Thiel et al., 2007). Males ten­ded to flush at great­er dis­tances than females and longer flush­ing dis­tances were recor­ded in more open wood­land. Birds also flushed more eas­ily in areas with high intens­ity of winter tour­ism or hunt­ing pres­sure com­pared to undis­turbed areas. The authors noted that the unpre­dict­able nature of off- trail tour­ism meant that birds are less likely to habitu­ate to it. The mean flush­ing dis­tance in this study was 27 ± 0.6 m (SE, n = 752; range 1 – 104 m) and 90% of all flush­ing events were at less than 50 m. The authors recom­men­ded the estab­lish­ment of reg­u­la­tions requir­ing hikers to stay on trails and clos­ing trails where inter-trail dis­tances fall below 100m. An example of such man­age­ment in the Bay­erischer Wald Nation­al Park, Bav­aria, res­ul­ted in caper­cail­lie return­ing to the sur­round­ing wood­land (Scherzinger 2003 cited in Sum­mers et al., 2007).

A recent radio-tele­metry study in south-west­ern Ger­many found that whilst out­door recre­ation did not affect home range selec­tion, strong effects on hab­it­at use with­in the home range were detec­ted. Dis­tance to recre­ation infra­struc­ture (e.g. hik­ing and cross-coun­try ski­ing trails, ski pistes) was the main determ­in­ant of hab­it­at selec­tion in winter; in sum­mer, moun­tain bike trails and hiker’s res­taur­ants were avoided up to an aver­age dis­tance of 145m (CI: 60 – 1092m). Rel­at­ive avoid­ance of winter-infra­struc­ture, was recor­ded up to 320m (CI: 36 – 327m), this reduced when dense under­story provided visu­al cov­er. Between 8- 20% (sum­mer) and 8- 40% (winter) of the pop­u­la­tion area was affected by out­door recre­ation (Coppes et al. 2017).

Caper­cail­lie need to com­prom­ise between shel­ter and out­look. A study by Finne and co-work­ers (Finne et al., 2000) indic­ated that males prefer good cov­er at the expense of a good over­view of the sur­round­ing area when select­ing day­time roost­ing sites. They noted that to be suit­able as male hab­it­at, areas sur­round­ing caper­cail­lie leks should con­tain forest with a high ver­tic­al cov­er close to the ground, i.e. with low can­op­ies. They indic­ated that this could be achieved by thin­ning young even aged plant­a­tions at an early stage, or reju­ven­at­ing forests by selec­tion cut­ting and nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion instead of clear felling and plant­ing. Hab­it­at struc­ture has been shown to modi­fy the alert dis­tance of a num­ber of bird spe­cies, with increas­ing bird tol­er­ance asso­ci­ated with great­er avail­ab­il­ity of escape cov­er (Fernan­dez-Jur­i­cic et al., 2001). In the spe­cif­ic case of caper­cail­lie, Thiel and co-authors (2007) recom­men­ded plant­ing or pre­serving ever­green con­ifer trees in dense rows along crit­ic­al parts of dis­turb­ance sources thus redu­cing the degree of vis­ib­il­ity between caper­cail­lie and recre­ation­ists – this would increase the hab­it­at avail­able to caper­cail­lie in forests with pre­dict­able recre­ation activities.

In the UK, expert opin­ion also states that caper­cail­lie in Scot­land are adversely affected by recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance and that dis­turb­ance is most crit­ic­al dur­ing lekking and brood rear­ing times (Mar­shall, 2005). This report, which was based on the opin­ions of 15 experts, sug­ges­ted a min­im­um 75 m buf­fer for exclu­sion of human activ­ity at known leks but recog­nised the need for more field-based empir­ic­al research. This report also emphas­ised the poten­tial impact of dogs not under con­trol in caper­cail­lie areas. The experts con­sidered that uncon­trolled dogs can cause severe dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie dur­ing the lek and breed­ing sea­son (p19). Nearly 75% of the expert responses relat­ing to walk­ing a loose dog rated this activ­ity as caus­ing the highest (>75m) level of dis­turb­ance (p7).

A more recent report (Rud­dock & Whit­field, 2007) also col­lated the views of experts and cal­cu­lated the medi­an alert dis­tance (AD) and flight ini­ti­ation dis­tance (FID) for the spe­cies as ascer­tained from expert opin­ion, and these are tab­u­lated below.

Alert dis­tance Medi­an dis­tance (metres) Sample Size 80% range val­ues* (metres) Incub­at­ing 75 Chick rear­ing 75 Lekking 125 11 <10 – 150 4 <10 — 150 9 100 — 750

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• The 80% range value is the range in opin­ion val­ues after the lower 10% and upper 10% of opin­ions were excluded.

Flight ini­ti­ation dis­tance Medi­an dis­tance (metres) Sample Size 80% range val­ues* (metres) Incub­at­ing 5 Chick rear­ing 30 Lekking 75 11 5 5 <10 – 100 <10 – 50 50 — 500

• The 80% range value is the range in opin­ion val­ues after the lower 10% and upper 10% of opin­ions were excluded.

In Scot­land, research on recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance has provided evid­ence of the effects of paths and tracks on caper­cail­lie. Sum­mers and co-work­ers (2004) found that in winter caper­cail­lie avoided wood­land close to tracks and sug­ges­ted that human dis­turb­ance may dis­place caper­cail­lie and reduce the amount of wood­land avail­able. This led them to sug­gest that remov­al or clos­ure of tracks might bene­fit caper­cail­lie and a fur­ther study was under­taken. This fol­low-on study in four forests stands at Glen­more and Aber­nethy also con­cluded that the use of trees by caper­cail­lie was lower close to tracks (Sum­mers et al., 2007). The authors estim­ated that 21 – 41% of wood­land may be avoided by caper­cail­lie as a res­ult of dis­turb­ance and again recom­men­ded that unne­ces­sary tracks should be removed, re-routed, or their pro­mo­tion and main­ten­ance reduced.

A sep­ar­ate study which used drop­pings as an inex­pens­ive way of map­ping the dis­tri­bu­tion of caper­cail­lie at a fine-grained res­ol­u­tion in three wood­lands in Badenoch & Strath­spey, found that dis­turb­ance with­in a few hun­dred metres of wood­land entrances was so great that ground there was little used by caper­cail­lie. Bey­ond this, dis­turb­ance asso­ci­ated with tracks deterred caper­cail­lie from a belt of ground at least 140 m wide, up to 470 m where people and dogs strayed off tracks (Moss et al., 2014).

In sum­mary, caper­cail­lie are vul­ner­able to dis­turb­ance. They nest on the ground and their most vul­ner­able stage is con­sidered to be as eggs or chicks. At this stage, they can be dir­ectly killed by dogs, or killed by pred­at­ors such as crows when the hen is flushed from the nest or brood, or killed by expos­ure if a hen is flushed. Caper­cail­lie are also vul­ner­able to dis­turb­ance on the lek. Some cock birds become over-aggress­ive and lose their fear of humans, but the vast major­ity of males are very eas­ily driv­en away. Adult birds can fly away from dis­turb­ance and to that extent, are less vul­ner­able than eggs and chicks. How­ever, even adult birds can be vul­ner­able to col­lapse and death in winter. This is thought to hap­pen when the weath­er is windy and wet, because in winter they mostly eat low cal­or­ie Scots pine needles, and expos­ure plus repeated dis­turb­ance may mean that they run out of energy. The pre­cise ways in which dis­turb­ance from people and dogs affect dif­fer­ent aspects of caper­cail­lie eco­logy (e.g. court­ship, breed­ing, rear­ing, dis­pers­al, for­aging, winter energy expendit­ure) are, how­ever, not fully understood.

Appendix 2: Links between the SPAs, and between the SPAs and non-des­ig­nated wood­lands in Badenoch and Strathspey

After a peri­od of rap­id and sig­ni­fic­ant decline (Eaton et al., 2007) the nation­al pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie has been estim­ated to be between 1000 and 2000 birds by each nation­al sur­vey under­taken since the first in 1992 — 1994. Thus, the nation­al pop­u­la­tion is small and remains vul­ner­able. Con­ser­va­tion of caper­cail­lie requires con­sid­er­a­tion at the meta­pop­u­la­tion scale as well as at the scale of indi­vidu­al sites.

The Badenoch & Strath­spey meta-pop­u­la­tion is the key pop­u­la­tion in the UK (Poole, 2010), hold­ing around 75% of the estim­ated nation­al pop­u­la­tion (Ewing et al., 2012). With­in Badenoch & Strath­spey there are five SPAs with caper­cail­lie as a qual­i­fy­ing interest:Abernethy Forest; Anagach

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Woods; Craigmore Wood; Cairngorms; and Kin­veachy Forest. The dis­tances between these SPAs are well with­in max­im­um caper­cail­lie dis­pers­al dis­tances known from the lit­er­at­ure. These are:

• Storch (1995) radio-tracked 40 caper­cail­lie in the Bav­ari­an Alps and found that through­out the year dis­tances of females from the leks they atten­ded in spring aver­aged 1.3 km (Stand­ard Error = 0.1 km). In winter and spring males aggreg­ated with­in a 1 km radi­us of the lek, but dis­persed with­in a 3 – 4 km radi­us dur­ing sum­mer; • Storch (2001 cited in Moss et al., 2006) con­cluded that most males settle close to their chick range but young female dis­pers­al dis­tances were typ­ic­ally 5 – 10 km; • A radio-track­ing study of males at leks in Rus­sia and Nor­way recor­ded aver­age dis­pers­al dis­tance of males to sum­mer range of 2.3 km, SE = 0.37 (Rus­sia 2.2.km, SE = 0.70; Nor­way 2.4 km, SE = 0.43) (Hjelford et al., 2000) • Storch & Segel­bach­er (2000) sum­mar­ised known move­ments as aver­age sea­son­al move­ments of 1 – 2 km for adults and medi­an dis­pers­al dis­tances of < 10 km for juveniles;

The dis­tances recor­ded in a Scot­tish study (Moss et al., 2006) are some­what longer than those above, and this may be related to the frag­men­ted nature of Scot­tish forests com­pared with those on the con­tin­ent, or pos­sible incom­plete nat­al dis­pers­al in some of the Storch studies:

• the nat­al or first-winter dis­pers­al dis­tances of 13 hens radio-tracked by Moss et al. (2006) ranged with­in 1 – 30 km (medi­an: 11, mean 12.3, SD 9.8).

We con­clude that effects on the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in any one of these SPAs could poten­tially affect the pop­u­la­tion in the oth­ers. Sim­il­arly, the effects on the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion with­in undes­ig­nated woods in Badenoch & Strath­spey could affect the pop­u­la­tions in the five SPAs.

Appendix 3: References:

Coppes, J., Ehr­lach­er, J., Suchant, R. & Braunisch, V. (2017). Out­door recre­ation causes effect­ive hab­it­at reduc­tion in Caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus: a major threat for geo­graph­ic­ally restric­ted pop­u­la­tions. Journ­al Avi­an Bio­logy doi:10.1111/jav.01239 Eaton, M.E., Mar­shall, K.B. & Gregory, R.D. (2007) Status of Caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus in Scot­land dur­ing winter ²⁰⁰³⁄₄. Bird Study 54: 145 – 153. Ewing, S.R., Eaton, M.A., Poole, T., Dav­ies, M., & Haysom, S. (2012) The size of the Scot­tish pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus: res­ults of the fourth nation­al sur­vey. Bird Study Vol.59(2): 126 – 138. Fernan­dez-Jur­i­cic, E., Jime­nez, M.D. & Lucas, E. (2001) Alert dis­tance as an altern­at­ive meas­ure of bird tol­er­ance to human dis­turb­ance: implic­a­tions for park design. Envir­on­ment­al Con­ser­va­tion 28(3): 263 – 269. Finne, M.H., Wegge, P., Eli­assen, S. & Odden, M. (2000) Day­time roost­ing and hab­it­at pref­er­ences of caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus males in spring – the import­ance of forest struc­ture in rela­tion to anti-pred­at­or beha­viour. Wild­life Bio­logy 6(4): 241 – 249 Hjelford, O., Wegge, P., Rol­stad, J., Ivan­ova, M. & Beshkar­ev, A.B. (2000) Spring-sum­mer move­ments of the male caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus: A test of the ​‘land­scape mosa­ic’ hypo­thes­is. Wild­life Bio­logy 6(4): 251 – 256. High­land Coun­cil (2014) Report No NBS/02/14 Pop­u­la­tion Change in Nairn and Badenoch & Strath­spey 2001 to 2011, by Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Development.

Mar­shall K. (2005). Caper­cail­lie and recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance study. Unpub­lished report for CNPA, FCS and SNH. 11

Moss, R., Picozzi, N., Catt, D.C. (2006). Nat­al dis­pers­al of caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus in north­east Scot­land. Wild­life Bio­logy 12(2): 227 – 232.

Moss, R., Leck­ie, F., Big­gins, A., Poole, T., Baines D. & Kort­land, K. (2014) Impacts of human dis­turb­ance on caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus dis­tri­bu­tion and demo­graphy in Scot­tish wood­land. Wild­life Bio­logy 20: 1 — 18. Picozzi, N., Catt, D.C. & Moss, R. (1992). Eval­u­ation of caper­cail­lie hab­it­at. Journ­al of Applied Eco­logy 29: 751 — 762. Poole, T. (2010). Caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in Scot­land – import­ance of Strath­spey meta­pop­u­la­tion. Unpub­lished report. Rud­dock, M. & Whit­field, D.P. (2007). A Review of Dis­turb­ance Dis­tances in Selec­ted Bird Spe­cies. A report from Nat­ur­al Research (Pro­jects) Ltd to Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age. Scherzinger, W. 2003. Artenschcutzprjekt Auer­huhn in Nation­al­park Bay­erischer Wald von 1985 –

1. Nation­al­park Bay­erischer Wald. Wis­senschaft­liche Reihe – Heft 15. Storch, I. (1995) Annu­al home ranges and spa­cing pat­terns of caper­cail­lie in Cent­ral Europe. Journ­al of Wild­life Man­age­ment 59(2): 392 – 400. Storch, I. (2013) Human dis­turb­ance of grouse — why and when? Wild­life Bio­logy, 19(4):390 – 403. Storch, I. & Segel­bach­er, G. (2000). Genet­ic cor­rel­ates of spa­tial pop­u­la­tion struc­ture in cent­ral European caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus and black grouse T. tet­rix: a pro­ject in pro­gress. Wild­life Bio­logy 6(4): 305 – 310. Sum­mers, R. W., McFar­lane, J., & Pearce-Hig­gins, J. W. (2004). Meas­ur­ing Avoid­ance of Wood­lands Close to Tracks by Caper­cail­lies in Scots Pine Wood­land. Report to Forestry Com­mis­sion Scot­land, Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age and the Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds. Sum­mers, R. W., McFar­lane, J. & Pearce-Hig­gins, J.W. (2007) Meas­ur­ing avoid­ance by caper­cail­lies Tet­rao urogal­lus of wood­land close to tracks. Wild­life Bio­logy 13(1): 19 – 27 Sum­mers, R. W., Proc­tor, R., Thornton, M. & Avey, G. (2004) Hab­it­at selec­tion and diet of the Caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus in Aber­nethy Forest, Strath­spey, Scot­land. Bird Study 51: 58 – 68. Thiel, D., Men­oni, E., Brenot, J.-B. & Jenni, L. (2007) Effects of recre­ation and hunt­ing on flush­ing dis­tance of caper­cail­lie. The Journ­al of Wild­life Man­age­ment 71(6): 1784 – 1792. Thiel, D.T., Jenni-Eider­m­ann, S., Palme, R., Jenn, L. (2011) Winter tour­ism increases stress hor­mone levels in the Caper­cail­lie Tet­rao urogal­lus. Ibis (2011), 153, 122 – 133 12