Paper 1 Loch Kinord Access March 2022

Title: Loc­al Access Guid­ance at Loch Kinord — Pro­pos­als for 2022 Pre­pared by: Ewan Lawrie and Gav­in Clark, NatureScot Tay­side & Grampi­an Area Pur­pose: To provide an update on pro­posed Loc­al Access Guid­ance in rela­tion to water-sports in 2022

Back­ground NatureScot man­ages Loch Kinord as part of Muir of Din­net Nation­al Nature Reserve. It is also covered by SSSI, SPA, SAC and Ram­sar des­ig­na­tions. In 2021 due to a rap­id and sig­ni­fic­ant increase in water-sports users com­ing to the loch, and fol­low­ing stake­hold­er con­sulta­tion, NatureScot intro­duced revised Loc­al Access Guid­ance ask­ing vis­it­ors not to go on the water dur­ing the bird breed­ing sea­son, 1 March to 31 August. Ini­tial mes­saging to influ­ence users to be respons­ible and ​“go else­where if the loch looks busy” was not effect­ive and the revised guid­ance was intro­duced on 16 June in tan­dem with a paper to the LOAF out­lining the issues.

A fur­ther paper was sub­mit­ted to the LOAF in Novem­ber provid­ing an end of sea­son update and out­lining the pro­posed way for­ward. As part of the pro­cess NatureScot under­took to review the revised guid­ance pri­or to the start of the 2022 sea­son. Spe­cial­ist advice was sought intern­ally with­in NatureScot on the wild­life interests, and a Sur­vey Mon­key ques­tion­naire was under­taken, and fol­lowed up with an on-line stake­hold­er meet­ing. The Sur­vey Mon­key ques­tions are included for inform­a­tion at Annex B.

The Nation­al Access For­um has set up a sub group to look at Access Guid­ance relat­ing to wild­life dis­turb­ance, and any guid­ance adop­ted for Loch Kinord in 2022 will be reviewed again in light of their find­ings. NatureScot is also devel­op­ing a frame­work for deal­ing with wild­life dis­turb­ance across the whole suite of NNRs. The pos­i­tion set out here is con­sist­ent with that frame­work and will con­tin­ue to be informed by any devel­op­ments in the framework.

Pro­posed 2022 Loc­al Access Guid­ance NatureScot intends to con­tin­ue to ask people not to take access for water-sports on Loch Kinord dur­ing the bird breed­ing sea­son in 2022, in the same way as was oper­ated in 2021. One excep­tion is that we will identi­fy zones where we believe open-water swim­ming may be under­taken respons­ibly. Indic­at­ive zones (blue lines) and buf­fer (black lines) are shown below for illus­trat­ive purposes.

Impact on Con­ser­va­tion Interests. Muir of Din­net is a Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest for its Breed­ing Bird and fresh­wa­ter interests it is also a Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area for its non-breed­ing wild­fowl assemblage and a Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion for Otter. All wild birds and their nests are pro­tec­ted under the Wild­life and Coun­tryside Act and some spe­cies such as Goldeneye, which is present on the site, are sub­ject to addi­tion­al pro­tec­tion from inten­tion­al or reck­less dis­turb­ance. The assemblage of breed­ing birds of lochs and fens reg­u­larly includes spe­cies such as great- cres­ted and little grebes, mute swan, water rail, spot­ted crake and sedge warbler, along with wigeon, goosander and goldeneye. In addi­tion, the loch is also an import­ant feed­ing site for osprey, which nest else­where on Deeside.

Based on bird counts car­ried out by NNR staff, com­par­is­ons between busy times and oth­er times, and before and after the revised guid­ance was intro­duced in 2021, the revised guid­ance has reduced dis­turb­ance and so helped the con­ser­va­tion of the nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally import­ant species.

Although the count inform­a­tion is rel­at­ively simple, it is clear-cut, and the prin­ciple of wild­life dis­turb­ance arising from non-exploit­at­ive recre­ation is well recog­nised and sup­por­ted by ample pub­lished evid­ence from elsewhere.

Con­sulta­tion and Responses As out­lined in the Novem­ber paper a Sur­vey Mon­key was sent to stake­hold­ers with a fol­low up on-line meet­ing to dis­cuss the res­ults. As with pre­vi­ous con­sulta­tion, a wide range of views were evid­ent. As the par­ti­cipants were not selec­ted ran­domly, no stat­ist­ic­al ana­lys­is was car­ried out as it would not have been val­id. The issues raised were broadly sim­il­ar to pre­vi­ous responses with some people strongly sup­port­ive of the 2021 guid­ance, and oth­ers sug­gest­ing changes to:

• Activ­it­ies covered
• Tim­ing
• Intro­duc­tion of zoning
• Per­mit System

Respond­ents also dis­cussed oth­er impacts, altern­at­ive pro­vi­sion in the area and ways to pro­mote the guid­ance. The Sur­vey Mon­key also sought to explore per­cep­tions of causes of dis­turb­ance includ­ing from dif­fer­ent types of land-based recre­ation, and reas­ons for choos­ing Loch Kinord as a des­tin­a­tion for water-sports versus altern­at­ive locations.

Activ­it­ies Small num­bers of canoes and kayaks have used Loch Kinord over a num­ber of years mostly without any issue. The upswing in num­bers of craft appears to be down to the inex­pens­ive avail­ab­il­ity and port­ab­il­ity of paddle-boards and oth­er inflat­ables, along­side increased pres­sures on the coun­tryside due to the Cov­id pan­dem­ic. There is a per­cep­tion that paddle- boarders are more dis­turb­ing than kayak or canoe based on the fact they have a taller pro­file and hence are vis­ible at a great­er dis­tance. Also there may be a tend­ency among some to be nois­i­er and cre­ate more splash­ing. In 2021 the guid­ance also included open water swim­ming, largely in an attempt to keep the mes­saging as simple as possible.

Pub­lished dis­turb­ance dis­tances are shown at Annex A. How­ever few are spe­cif­ic to the type of craft. Based on these the gen­er­al­isa­tion of 200m used pre­vi­ously remains reas­on­able in our view. We are not aware of any spe­cif­ic research that has invest­ig­ated the likely impact of swim­ming versus oth­er water sport activ­it­ies on bird dis­turb­ance. The pro­posed approach is there­fore based on informed opin­ion that swim­ming is likely to be less dis­turb­ing than craft on or above the water. This is in part because swim­mers are likely to be more spa­tially lim­ited. Swim­mers are also likely to be less eas­ily detec­ted by the birds than a paddleboard/​canoe due to the over­all pro­file of the per­son in the water. It is not pos­sible to put a defin­it­ive dis­tance on dis­turb­ance from swim­mers but we do have some know­ledge of likely dis­turb­ance dis­tances from oth­er recre­ation­al activities.

For example, widgeon has been found to have a flight ini­ti­ation dis­tance of 100m from a small fish­ing boat versus 700m from a wind surfer and 230m from a kayak. Goldeneye has been found to be dis­turbed by non-motor­ised water­craft at 160m but up to 740m from a kite surfer. The max­im­um flight ini­ti­ation dis­tance recor­ded for goldeneye when approached by a ped­es­tri­an (on land) is 40m dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son (likely due to their secluded nest­ing habits) and 200m dur­ing the non-breed­ing sea­son. (Although note that this can be vari­able between indi­vidu­als with­in the spe­cies and between localities).

Hard shores at the north and south sides of the loch where there are few­er birds and no goldeneye nest boxes have been iden­ti­fied as ​‘zones’ where we can acqui­esce to swim­ming and mon­it­or usage and any impacts over the course of the com­ing season.

Tim­ing Con­cerns were raised by stake­hold­ers regard­ing both the length and the tim­ing of the guid­ance. Our advice is that the dates of 1 March to 31 August are appro­pri­ate for the breed­ing sea­son, in order to cov­er the vari­ety of spe­cies in the site. For instance great cres­ted grebes tend to start early (March – although some­times even mid-Feb) where­as oth­er spe­cies like goldeneye don’t tend to breed until mid-April. Sim­il­arly for some of the rel­ev­ant spe­cies (and to be some­what pre­cau­tion­ary) the 31^st of August is an appro­pri­ate end date.

It has been dis­cussed wheth­er access could be lim­ited to spe­cif­ic days (i.e. days of the week) in the belief that the dis­turb­ance being more tem­por­ally lim­ited would there­fore be less sig­ni­fic­ant. Hav­ing time where there is little to no dis­turb­ance would enable the birds to recov­er and return to nat­ur­al beha­viours rather than main­tain a more high alert. How­ever there are prob­lems with the prac­tic­al­it­ies of this approach. Either it would be unen­force­able, or it would have the effect of cre­at­ing more demand on the ​‘per­mit­ted’ days. It would also be dif­fi­cult to set a threshold for ​“accept­able” disturbance.

Zon­ing Some parties have argued for access to be allowed by defin­ing zones where water-sports could be per­mit­ted. In 2021 NatureScot ruled this out on the grounds that the loch is too small to accom­mod­ate useable zones for water-sports while still provid­ing suit­able refuge for wild­life, based on typ­ic­al dis­turb­ance dis­tances. Hav­ing dis­cussed the dis­tri­bu­tion of the birds with­in the site (that they are gen­er­ally wide­spread but favoured hab­it­ats along the east and west banks of the loch), advice is that it would be chal­len­ging to intro­duce mean­ing­ful zones which allowed a suf­fi­cient area for recre­ation­al use by water craft, without caus­ing dis­turb­ance to the spe­cies present.

Per­mits It has also been sug­ges­ted that a per­mit sys­tem could be intro­duced to lim­it the amount of dis­turb­ance. Our advice has been that this would only be enforce­able under Bye-Law powers. How­ever this is admin­is­trat­ively com­plic­ated and would be dif­fi­cult to enforce in these cir­cum­stances for prac­tic­al reasons.

Pre-arrival inform­a­tion The import­ance of clear guid­ance before people arrive on-site is accep­ted and NatureScot will work with on this issue with stake­hold­ers and as part of the man­age­ment of the site. Com­pli­ance in 2021 was gen­er­ally very good. Stake­hold­ers have also raised the issue of the lack of altern­at­ive sites where they can under­take water-sports loc­ally. We accept that this is a genu­ine issue, how­ever our first respons­ib­il­ity is to pro­tect the spe­cies and hab­it­ats for which the NNR was estab­lished: not­ably the legis­lat­ive pur­pose for a nature reserve spe­cific­ally states that recre­ation­al pur­poses are sec­ond­ary to the con­ser­va­tion purpose¹.

Land-based activ­it­ies We will con­tin­ue to man­age land-based vis­it­ors using staff pres­ence, sig­nage and guid­ance as appro­pri­ate. For example vis­it­ors will again be asked to keep dogs on a lead through­out the bird breed­ing sea­son. We have also erec­ted new guide fen­cing in stra­tegic places to encour­age vis­it­ors to stick to paths and to stay away from the most sens­it­ive parts of the shore around Loch Kinord.

¹ Nation­al Parks and Access to the Coun­tryside Act 1949. S15 (1) (b) [mean­ing of ​“nature reserve”] land man­aged not only for a con­ser­va­tion pur­pose but also for a recre­ation­al pur­pose, if the man­age­ment of the land for the recre­ation­al pur­pose does not com­prom­ise its man­age­ment for the con­ser­va­tion purpose.

Annex A Dis­turb­ance dis­tances: Goldeneye

• Rud­dock and Whit­field — 150 – 300m (alert distance)

Great cres­ted grebe (Slavo­ni­an grebe proxy species)

• Rud­dock and Whit­field — 150 – 300m

Little Grebe (Slavo­ni­an grebe proxy species)

• Rud­dock and Whit­field — 150 – 300m (alert distance)

Goosander

• No data from Rud­dock and Whitfield
• Non-motor­ized water­craft at a site where level of habitu­ation to dis­turb­ance is unknown: Range of mean FID = 315 to 540m (GD‑1,2), Range of FID = 280 to 540m (GD‑1). (Good­ship and Fur­ness, 2019).

Mal­lard

• No data from Rud­dock and Whitfield
• The max­im­um FID value recor­ded for mal­lard is 98m when approached by a ped­es­tri­an dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. (Díaz et al., 2021).

Wigeon

• No data from Rud­dock and Whitfield

In the non-breed­ing season:

• Non-motor­iszed water­craft (hunt­ing punt) in Den­mark: Mean FID = 100m
• Non-motor­iszed water­craft (fish­ing boat) in Den­mark: Mean FID = 200m
• Non-motor­iszed water­craft (wind surfer) in Den­mark: Mean FID = 700m (Fox and Mad­sen, 1997).
• Non-motor­iszed water­craft (kayak) in nearshore waters off Den­mark: Mean FID = 230m (Laursen et al., 2017).

Osprey

• Rud­dock and Whit­field – 500 – 750m

Annex B Stake­hold­er questionnaire

Muir of Din­net Nation­al Nature Reserve — water-borne access on Loch Kinord

In June 2020, NatureScot intro­duced Loc­al Access Guid­ance which asked vis­it­ors not to take access on Loch Kinord, over con­cerns of dis­turb­ance to breed­ing birds, and driv­en by a large increase in the num­bers of people using the loch, many on paddle-boards but also kayaks, inflat­ables and open- water swimming

Loc­al Access Guid­ance is provided for in the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code. It does not con­sti­tute a ​‘ban’, but if guid­ance is ignored then you may not be act­ing respons­ibly as the Code requires. More inform­a­tion on the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code can be found here: https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/

Muir of Din­net NNR (includ­ing Loch Kinord) is also des­ig­nated as a Site of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest, includ­ing for its breed­ing birds. It is noti­fied as a Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area and Ram­sar site, mainly for win­ter­ing birds. More inform­a­tion on the des­ig­na­tions and pro­tec­ted interests can be found on our web­site https://sitelink.nature.scot/home

This sur­vey is the first step in a stake­hold­er con­sulta­tion and review which will inform a decision over what Loc­al Access Guid­ance may be appro­pri­ate in 2022 and sub­sequent years.

1. Are you respond­ing as an indi­vidu­al or organ­isa­tion / business?

Indi­vidu­al Organ­isa­tion / busi­ness [give name in com­ment box then skip to Q4] (com­ment box for name of organ­isa­tion or business)

1. Where do you live?

Loc­al-with­in 10 miles of the NNR Else­where in Aber­deen­shire or Aber­deen City Farther away

1. How often do you vis­it the NNR?

Reg­u­larly — about once a week Occa­sion­ally — about once a month Infre­quently — a couple of times a year

1. What is the main pur­pose of your vis­it to the NNR?

Walk / enjoy­ing the out­doors Walk — dog exer­cising To enjoy and observe nature e.g. bird-watch­ing Water-sports Oth­er recre­ation (e.g. moun­tain-bike, camp­ing, fish­ing – please spe­cify below) [com­ments box]

1. Have you noticed a change in how busy the NNR was in 2020 and 2021 com­pared with pre­vi­ous years?

Y/​N/​na

1. Do you think the num­ber of people vis­it­ing the NNR is harm­ing wild­life or dis­turb­ing the nature for which it was made a Reserve?

Y/​N/​na

1. If Yes, which activ­it­ies do you think are likely to be most dis­turb­ing to wild­life? [able to select multiple]

Dogs not under con­trol Camp­ing Fish­ing Moun­tain-bik­ing Water-sports Oth­er — please spe­cify below N/A [com­ments box]

1. Do you think some types of activ­ity on the water would be more likely to cause dis­turb­ance than oth­ers? (NB no fish­ing is per­mit­ted from boats, nor are any motor­ised craft per­mit­ted) [able to select multiple]

Paddle-board Swim­ming Kayak or canoe Inflat­ables or oth­er leis­ure craft [com­ments box]

1. In June 2021, the site man­agers (NatureScot) intro­duced Loc­al Access Guid­ance which asked vis­it­ors not to go out on the water dur­ing the bird breed­ing sea­son (1 March to 31 August). Do you think such a restric­tion helped reduce dis­turb­ance to wildlife?

Y/N/don’t know

1. Do you think a restric­tion like this is appro­pri­ate on a site which is des­ig­nated as a nature reserve?

Y/N/don’t know

1. Vari­ous sug­ges­tions have been made as to how dis­turb­ance might be reduced without clos­ing the loch for all water-sports dur­ing the bird breed­ing sea­son. Which options do you think should be con­sidered? [allow to select multiple]

More staff pres­ence Divide the loch into zones to allow lim­ited access Allow some types of activ­ity on the water but not oth­ers Bet­ter sig­nage or oth­er pub­li­city Oth­er — give details below [com­ments box]

1. Would you sup­port a sim­il­ar restric­tion to 2021 being put in place dur­ing 2022 and sub­sequent years?

Y/N/don’t know [com­ments box]

1. If you are a water-sports user, what are the reas­ons you choose Loch Kinord over oth­er sites? [allow to choose multiple]

Because it is a nature reserve Because it is an attract­ive loc­a­tion Because it is rel­at­ively safe Because it is easy to access (walk­ing dis­tance from car park­ing) There is a lack of oth­er con­veni­ent loc­a­tions for my activ­ity Oth­er N/A [com­ments box]

1. Any oth­er com­ments you wish to make rel­ev­ant to the top­ic of water access on Loch Kinord [com­ments box]