Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan

Pro­gramme Board meeting

Thursday 2 Octo­ber | Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey and Teams

Attendees

• Alex Macleod: North Region Man­ager, Forestry and Land Scotland
• Andy Ford: Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change, Park Author­ity (Chair)
• Car­o­lyn Robertson: Cairngorms Nature Man­ager, Park Authority
• Chris Don­ald: Head of Oper­a­tions Cent­ral High­lands, NatureScot
• John Risby: High­land and Islands Con­ser­vat­or, Scot­tish Forestry

1. Update on actions from the last meeting

The Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group are on track to share a draft Research and Mon­it­or­ing Plan with the Pro­gramme Board by the end of the year. The focus for mon­it­or­ing is on out­comes for caper­cail­lie. This marks a shift from mon­it­or­ing out­puts alone, e.g. hec­tar­age of hab­it­at improved. It was high­lighted that halt­ing pop­u­la­tion decline remains a crit­ic­al out­come and the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group has a key role to play in inform­ing plans for the next Nation­al Sur­vey to identi­fy pop­u­la­tion level change.

Work is ongo­ing to identi­fy oth­er data­sets needed to mon­it­or the Emer­gency Plan, not­ing cur­rent incon­sist­en­cies in data res­ol­u­tion, times­cales and spa­tial cov­er­age, and the absence of some data­sets. Fund­ing is needed to address some of these issues to ensure effect­ive and robust mon­it­or­ing of the Emer­gency Plan. A ques­tion was raised for the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group about how cli­mate change factors into monitoring.

No con­tract­or was appoin­ted fol­low­ing the tender brief advert­ised on Pub­lic Con­tracts Scot­land to sup­port deliv­ery of the Emer­gency Plan. In response, the Park Author­ity is look­ing to repri­or­it­ise work to cre­ate more intern­al capa­city. While the option of using an eco­lo­gic­al con­sultancy was raised, the gen­er­al view was that keep­ing deliv­ery sup­port in-house is more effect­ive, par­tic­u­larly for stake­hold­er rela­tion­ships. Scot­tish Forestry fund­ing for the ori­gin­al con­tract­or brief was unavail­able this year, and fund­ing received from NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scot­land and RSPB will be revis­ited once intern­al repri­or­it­isa­tion is complete.

2. Deliv­er­ing pri­or­ity actions through the ²⁵⁄₂₆ Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund

The Board reviewed and approved a draft pro­gramme of work to deliv­er pri­or­ity actions from the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan, sup­por­ted by the Scot­tish Government’s Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund (NRF). The pro­posed activ­it­ies have been developed col­lab­or­at­ively with stake­hold­ers and with input from the RSPB Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Officer. To date, engage­ment has been open rather than tar­geted, with stake­hold­ers respond­ing to the fund­ing oppor­tun­ity as it was advert­ised. The Board agreed that land man­agers with­in caper­cail­lie Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas (SPAs) who have not yet respon­ded should now be con­tac­ted directly.

Pro­pos­als with­in the draft work pro­gramme include sup­port to cre­ate hab­it­at suit­ab­il­ity maps for caper­cail­lie, which will provide great­er abil­ity to tar­get inter­ven­tions in a spa­tially coher­ent way. A hab­it­at improve­ment plan for Forestry and Land Scot­land Strath­spey will also be developed as a pri­or­ity and used as a tem­plate for oth­er landholdings.

It was con­firmed that NRF fund­ing must be spent with­in the Nation­al Park. It was agreed that mon­it­or­ing and data shar­ing should be con­di­tions of any fund­ing awar­ded and that baseline data should be col­lec­ted wherever pos­sible before work begins. Where wood­land-graz­ing equip­ment is fun­ded, it was agreed that options should be dis­cussed with grantees to make equip­ment avail­able to oth­er loc­al gra­zi­ers con­trib­ut­ing to caper­cail­lie management.

Fence remov­al with­in 5 km of act­ive lek sites is a pri­or­ity. The Board reviewed high-risk fences and agreed that the Park Author­ity and Scot­tish Forestry will con­tact rel­ev­ant land man­agers to dis­cuss options for removal.

3. Stake­hold­er engagement

It was agreed that a pro­gress update for stake­hold­ers will be shared in Janu­ary, cov­er­ing the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group’s work, pre­par­a­tions for the breed­ing sea­son (includ­ing Lek It Be and diver­sion­ary feed­ing), dust bath cam­era / pro­ductiv­ity insights and an update on the rein­force­ment feas­ib­il­ity study. The poten­tial for Pro­gramme Board site vis­its was dis­cussed, and the Park Author­ity and Scot­tish Forestry will also vis­it land man­agers to dis­cuss fen­cing. Mem­bers high­lighted the import­ance of main­tain­ing pos­it­ive rela­tion­ships and keep­ing all stake­hold­ers engaged. Engage­ment with land man­agers in caper­cail­lie SPAs remains a priority.

4. Any oth­er business

Pro­gramme Board dates for 2026 will be aligned with Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group meet­ings. The next meet­ing will be held on Tues­day 16 December.

Actions

1. Car­o­lyn to share the draft Research and Mon­it­or­ing Plan from the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group for review at the next meeting.
2. Car­o­lyn to take for­ward deliv­ery of the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund pro­gramme of work as agreed by the Board.
3. Car­o­lyn to con­tact all land man­agers in caper­cail­lie SPAs who have not yet engaged in the Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund opportunity.
4. Car­o­lyn and John to con­tact all rel­ev­ant land man­agers to dis­cuss fences with­in 5km of act­ive lek sites and options for removal.
5. Car­o­lyn to draft and cir­cu­late a stake­hold­er update in Janu­ary as agreed.
6. Car­o­lyn to provide an update at the next meet­ing on intern­al repri­or­it­isa­tion to sup­port deliv­ery of the Emer­gency Plan.