Item7Appendix4HRA20190386NOT

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 4 21/02/2020

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 4

2019/0386/NOT

HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS ASSESSMENT

CAIN­R­GORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAIS­AL PROFORMA

This pro­forma has been used to record Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­it­ies Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al when CNPA is the com­pet­ent authority.

31^st Janu­ary 2020

APPRAIS­AL IN RELA­TION TO REG­U­LA­TION 48 OF THE CON­SER­VA­TION (NAT­UR­AL HAB­IT­ATS, &C.) REG­U­LA­TIONS 1994 AS AMENDED¹ (HAB­IT­ATS REG­U­LA­TIONS APPRAISAL)

Case­work Man­age­ment Sys­tem Ref. 2019/0386/NOT

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)

¹Or, 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.

Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scot­ica) Per­eg­rine (Falco peregrinus)

1. Craigmore Wood SPA Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

2. Kin­veachy Forest SPA Scot­tish cross­bill (Lox­ia scot­ica) Caper­cail­lie (Tet­rao urogallus)

Con­ser­va­tion object­ives for qual­i­fy­ing interests:

1. 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)

2. 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)

3. 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)

1. 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)

2. 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: 2019/0386/NOT Erec­tion of a forestry build­ing | Land Near Bad­den­gorm Carrbridge

Name of com­pet­ent author­ity: CNPA

Details of pro­pos­al (inc. loc­a­tion, tim­ing, meth­ods): Pro­pos­al to erect a forestry hut to store tools and equip­ment related to forestry management

STAGE 2: IS THE PLAN OR PRO­JECT DIR­ECTLY CON­NEC­TED WITH OR NECES­SARY TO SITE MAN­AGE­MENT FOR NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION? The fol­low­ing points should be con­sidered: i) Has the effect on all qual­i­fy­ing interests been con­sidered? ii) Is the pro­pos­al part of a fully assessed and agreed man­age­ment plan? iii) Is there a clear rationale to jus­ti­fy the con­nec­tion with the con­ser­va­tion object­ives? iv) If there is a clear con­nec­tion with the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will any bene­fits arising from the pro­pos­al out­weigh any neg­at­ive effects?

v) Have any altern­at­ive meth­ods of imple­ment­ing the pro­pos­al been explored to demon­strate that this is the least dam­aging option? vi) Give a YES/NO con­clu­sion in terms of wheth­er the plan or pro­ject is con­sidered dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary to site man­age­ment for nature con­ser­va­tion. If YES for all ele­ments of a plan or pro­ject, for all the Natura qual­i­fy­ing interests (prefer­ably as part of a fully assessed and agreed man­age­ment plan), then con­sent can be issued. The rationale should be detailed below and no fur­ther apprais­al is required (no need to pro­ceed to stage 3 or 4).

• If No for all Natura qual­i­fy­ing interests then pro­ceed to stage 3.
• If a plan has mul­tiple ele­ments (e.g. a range of policies or man­age­ment object­ives), ele­ments of the plan con­sidered dir­ectly con­nec­ted with or neces­sary to site man­age­ment for nature con­ser­va­tion should be dis­cussed below and a rationale giv­en for this con­clu­sion. No fur­ther apprais­al is then required for those ele­ments. All oth­er ele­ments of the plan must pro­ceed to stage 3.

No the pro­pos­al has not con­sidered all of the points i‑v giv­en above

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? Each qual­i­fy­ing interest should be con­sidered in rela­tion to their con­ser­va­tion object­ives. The fol­low­ing points should be con­sidered: i) Briefly indic­ate which qual­i­fy­ing interest could be affected by the pro­pos­al and how; if none, provide a brief jus­ti­fic­a­tion for this decision, and then pro­ceed to v), oth­er­wise con­tin­ue: ii) refer to oth­er plans/​projects with sim­il­ar effects/​other rel­ev­ant evid­ence; iii) con­sider the nature, scale, loc­a­tion, longev­ity, and revers­ib­il­ity of effects; iv) con­sider wheth­er the pro­pos­al con­trib­utes to cumu­lat­ive or incre­ment­al impacts in com­bin­a­tion with oth­er plans or pro­jects com­pleted, under­way or pro­posed; v) Where the impacts of a pro­pos­al are the same for dif­fer­ent qual­i­fy­ing interests these can be con­sidered togeth­er how­ever a clear con­clu­sion should be giv­en for each interest vi) give Yes/​No con­clu­sion for each interest.

• If yes, or in cases of doubt, con­tin­ue to stage 4.
• If poten­tial sig­ni­fic­ant effects can eas­ily be avoided, record modi­fic­a­tions required below. If no for all fea­tures, a con­sent or non-objec­tion response can be giv­en and recor­ded below (although if there are oth­er fea­tures of nation­al interest only, the effect on these should be con­sidered sep­ar­ately). There is no need to then pro­ceed to stage 4.

1.Capercaillie Yes, likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect on all five SPAs lis­ted above, for the fol­low­ing reas­ons: • Caper­cail­lie are known to live and breed in Bad­den­gorm Wood • Caper­cail­lie are sens­it­ive to human dis­turb­ance (see evid­ence in Annex 1) • This pro­pos­al is likely to increase dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie in Bad­den­gorm Wood. • Increased dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie in Bad­den­gorm Wood could affect the pop­u­la­tions of these birds in all 5 SPAs lis­ted above, which are des­ig­nated to pro­tect the Strath­spey caper­cail­lie meta-pop­u­la­tion (see evid­ence in Annex 1).

1. 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:

STAGE 4: UNDER­TAKE AN APPRO­PRI­ATE ASSESS­MENT OF THE IMPLIC­A­TIONS FOR THE SITE IN VIEW OF ITS CON­SER­VA­TION OBJECT­IVES (It is the respons­ib­il­ity of the com­pet­ent author­ity to carry out the appro­pri­ate assess­ment. The com­pet­ent author­ity must con­sult SNH for the pur­poses of car­ry­ing out the appro­pri­ate assess­ment. SNH can provide advice on what issues should be con­sidered in the appro­pri­ate assess­ment, what inform­a­tion is required to carry out the assess­ment, in some cir­cum­stances carry out an apprais­al to inform an appro­pri­ate assess­ment and/​or provide com­ments on an assess­ment car­ried out. Where we are provid­ing advice to a com­pet­ent author­ity our apprais­al of the pro­pos­al should be recor­ded here.)

The fol­low­ing points should be con­sidered: i) Describe for each qual­i­fy­ing interest the poten­tial impacts of the pro­pos­al detail­ing which aspects or effects of the pro­pos­al could impact upon them and their con­ser­va­tion object­ives. ii) Eval­u­ate the poten­tial impacts, e.g. wheth­er short/​long term, revers­ible or irre­vers­ible, and in rela­tion to the proportion/​importance of the interest affected, and the over­all effect on the site’s con­ser­va­tion object­ives. This should be in suf­fi­cient detail to ensure all impacts have been con­sidered and suf­fi­ciently appraised. Record if addi­tion­al sur­vey inform­a­tion or spe­cial­ist advice has been obtained. iii) Each con­ser­va­tion object­ive should be con­sidered and a decision reached as to wheth­er the pro­pos­al will affect achieve­ment of this object­ive i.e. wheth­er the con­ser­va­tion object­ive will still be met if the pro­pos­al is con­sen­ted to.

Caper­cail­lie use of Bad­den­gorm Wood Bad­den­gorm Wood, in com­mon with many of the Scots pine wood­lands in Badenoch and Strath­spey, hosts a pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie. Caper­cail­lie sight­ings, and signs, such as feath­ers and drop­ping, have been found through­out most of the wood over a peri­od of some 19 years. There is a stable lek, suit­able brood hab­it­at, and broods have been found in the wood. Caper­cail­lie are present all year. It is there­fore part of the func­tion­ing meta­pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie in Badenoch and Strathspey.

A meta-pop­u­la­tion con­sists of a group of spa­tially sep­ar­ated pop­u­la­tions of the same spe­cies which inter­act. The pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie in Scot­land exhib­its a meta­pop­u­la­tion struc­ture, with six meta-pop­u­la­tions. Bad­den­gorm Wood is part of the Strath­spey meta-pop­u­la­tion, which is the largest of the six hold­ing approx­im­ately 83% of the total. Main­ten­ance of the Strath­spey pop­u­la­tion is there­fore crit­ic­al to the long term sur­viv­al of the spe­cies in Scotland.

Loc­a­tion The loc­a­tion of the devel­op­ment and the sur­round­ing SPAs is shown below. The dis­tances are approx­im­ately: Anagach Woods SPA: 14 km Cairngorms SPA 11 km Kin­veachy Forest SPA 2 km Aber­nethy Forest SPA 8 km Craigmore Wood SPA 12 km These are well with­in the caper­cail­lie dis­pers­al dis­tances iden­ti­fied in Annex 1. The loc­a­tion and size of Bad­den­gorm Wood means it is likely to play an import­ant func­tion with­in the Strath­spey caper­cail­lie meta-pop­u­la­tion. For example it provides con­nectiv­ity between pop­u­la­tions in SPAs and oth­er woods used by the birds, and is a poten­tial ​‘step­ping stone’ facil­it­at­ing move­ment between them.

Copyright@Crown Copy­right and data­base rights Ord­nance Sur­vey 100017908. Approx­im­ate loc­a­tion of site shown by blue dot

Effects of pro­pos­al on the con­ser­va­tion object­ives of the five SPAs For each of the con­ser­va­tion object­ives, the require­ment is to avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies 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 object­ives are main­tained in the long term — each of these is con­sidered below.

1 No sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the spe­cies At present, Bad­den­gorm Wood is rel­at­ively undis­turbed com­pared to oth­er loc­al woods around Carr-bridge. This is likely to be one of the key factors that mean caper­cail­lie can live and breed here successfully.

New build­ings in wood­land: the build­ing could be used for overnight stays, camp­ing and recre­ation­al activ­ity and the size of the build­ing sug­gests that this is a likely use. We can­not demon­strate bey­ond reas­on­able doubt that the hut will only be used for stor­age of tools in the future. This would be a per­man­ent effect and has the poten­tial to cause sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance, which risks lead­ing to an effect on the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in the wood, with con­sequent poten­tial effects on the meta­pop­u­la­tion. Evid­ence out­lined at Annex 1 shows that caper­cail­lie tend to avoid such sources of dis­turb­ance, there­fore dis­turb­ance can render appar­ently suit­able hab­it­at unavail­able to the birds. Erect­ing, and under­tak­ing recre­ation or man­age­ment from the pro­posed hut would all increase dis­turb­ance. The lek is close to the pro­posed loc­a­tion of the hut and is with­in the range of flight ini­ti­ation and alert dis­tances for lekking caper­cail­lie described in Annex 1; dis­turb­ance here could there­fore affect breed­ing suc­cess. Giv­en the levels of dis­turb­ance in the woods at present, and the prox­im­ity to the lek, such dis­turb­ance would be sig­ni­fic­ant, hav­ing a range of effects on the birds, as detailed in Annex 1.

Mit­ig­a­tion has been pro­posed with­in ​‘Cran­naich Man­age­ment Plan’ dated 9^th May, 2019 and ​‘Addi­tion­al Inform­a­tion Cran­naich’ dated 17^th Novem­ber, 2019 and includes not under­tak­ing works dur­ing the most sens­it­ive lek peri­od and lim­it­ing dis­turb­ance dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. The

pro­pos­al also states that the wood­land man­age­ment plan would under­take works to improve caper­cail­lie hab­it­at includ­ing heath­er swip­ing and thin­ning dense areas to allow increased blue­berry growth.

Mit­ig­a­tion has been pro­posed to not under­take wood­land man­age­ment works at sens­it­ive peri­ods, how­ever any activ­ity includ­ing recre­ation­al has a high prob­ab­il­ity of caus­ing unac­cept­able disturbance.

It is the con­sidered view of the RSPB that ​‘whilst hab­it­at man­age­ment is an import­ant aspect in the con­ser­va­tion of caper­cail­lie the birds are unlikely to util­ise even the best hab­it­at avail­able if it is sub­ject to dis­turb­ance’ (Con­sulta­tion Advice received RSPB 27/1/20). This is sup­por­ted by a study which used drop­pings as an inex­pens­ive way of map­ping the dis­tri­bu­tion of caper­cail­lie in three wood­lands in Badenoch & Strath­spey, which found that caper­cail­lie drop­pings were less likely to be found near the exist­ing houses and tracks, and it is assumed that the birds choose to avoid these areas, i.e., an avoid­ance response to human dis­turb­ance (Moss et al., 2014). Con­clu­sion: this con­ser­va­tion object­ive will not be met.

1. Pop­u­la­tion of the spe­cies as viable com­pon­ent of the sites and 3. Dis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in sites The pro­posed devel­op­ment will not have dir­ect effects on the main­ten­ance of either of these con­ser­va­tion object­ives. How­ever, there is poten­tial for indir­ect effects, as described below. Caper­cail­lie move from site to site, some­times over large dis­tances (Moss et al, 2006). Any­thing that affects the pop­u­la­tion in one place may also affect it else­where, for example, on des­ig­nated sites. Giv­en its loc­a­tion, struc­ture and size, Bad­den­gorm Wood can be con­sidered to func­tion as a poten­tial ​‘step­ping stone’ for caper­cail­lie, e.g. by facil­it­at­ing move­ment between SPAs and also with oth­er caper­cail­lie woods. It provides a link between Kin­veachy, Craigmore, Cairngorms (Glen­more) and Aber­nethy SPAs, all of which sup­port sig­ni­fic­ant ele­ments of the Strath­spey meta-pop­u­la­tion. It is part of the undes­ig­nated wood­lands which togeth­er are a key ele­ment for breed­ing, dis­pers­al and relo­ca­tion of birds and are there­fore import­ant for the spe­cies. Some authors sug­gest that wood­land frag­ments sep­ar­ated by 5 – 10 km might retain enough genet­ic diversity to avoid inbreed­ing depres­sion (Segel­bach­er et al 2003 cited in Moss et al 2006) and oth­ers (Moss et al. 2006) recom­mend that land­scape design should take account of the short­er dis­tances moved by dis­pers­ing males, cit­ing ​‘step­ping stone’ woods as an aid to this dispersal.

It is con­cluded above that caper­cail­lie are likely to be sub­ject to dis­turb­ance from this pro­posed devel­op­ment, which would affect that part of the meta-pop­u­la­tion res­id­ent in, or passing through, Bad­den­gorm Wood. This could render part or all of the wood unsuit­able for caper­cail­lie to use, live and breed at cur­rent levels. This means that the pop­u­la­tion of caper­cail­lie as a viable com­pon­ent of the Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas, and the dis­tri­bu­tion of caper­cail­lie with­in the SPAs, could be indir­ectly adversely affected by the pro­pos­als. Con­clu­sion: these con­ser­va­tion object­ives will not be met.

Over­all Con­clu­sion Three of the con­ser­va­tion object­ives will not be met by this pro­pos­al, so it can­not be shown that this pro­pos­al will not adversely affect the integ­rity of the five SPAS.

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

In the light of the apprais­al, ascer­tain wheth­er the pro­pos­al will not adversely affect the integ­rity of the site for the qual­i­fy­ing interests. Con­clu­sions should be reached bey­ond reas­on­able sci­entif­ic doubt. If more than one SAC and/​or SPA is involved, give sep­ar­ate con­clu­sions. If mit­ig­a­tion or modi­fic­a­tions are required, detail these below.

No. It can­not be shown that there would be no adverse effect on the integ­rity of the 5 Strath­spey SPAs clas­si­fied for capercaillie.

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

ADVICE SOUGHT • RSPB Con­sulta­tion 2019/2020 • High­land Coun­cil Wood­land Officer — 2020 • Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject Man­ager Car­o­lyn Robertson pers​.com. • SNH advice provided 31/01/20 • Evid­ence in Annex 1 based on that provided by Sue Haysom, SNH Orni­tho­lo­gist, in rela­tion to pre­vi­ous sim­il­ar proposals.

Annex One: Sci­entif­ic rationale

1. Effects of dis­turb­ance on caper­cail­lie 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 dis­turb­ance has focussed on off-path recre­ation­al use. A study of the beha­vi­our­al response of caper­cail­lie to off-trail hikers 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. 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(m) Medi­an distance(m) Sample Size 80% range val­ues* Incub­at­ing 75 11 <10 – 150 Chick rear­ing 75 4 <10 – 150 Lekking 125 9 100 – 750

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

Flight ini­ti­ation dis­tance (m) Medi­an dis­tance (m) Sample Size 80% range val­ues* Incub­at­ing 5 11 <10 – 100 Chick rear­ing 30 5 <10 – 50 Lekking 75 5 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 sources of dis­turb­ance, such as 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 caper­cail­lie drop­pings were less likely to be found near the exist­ing houses and tracks, and it is assumed that the birds choose to avoid these areas, i.e., an avoid­ance response to human dis­turb­ance (Moss et al., 2014). Anec­dot­al inform­a­tion sug­gests that caper­cail­lie use of forests, with­in 100m of hous­ing is neg­li­gible. 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 affects dif­fer­ent aspects of caper­cail­lie eco­logy (e.g. court­ship, breed­ing, rear­ing, dis­pers­al, for­aging, winter energy expendit­ure) are, how­ever, not fully understood.

1. 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 meta-pop­u­la­tion scale as well as at the scale of indi­vidu­al sites. With­in Badenoch & Strath­spey there are five SPAs with caper­cail­lie as a qual­i­fy­ing interest: Aber­nethy Forest; Anagach 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.

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. 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.