'Not a Plan at all'

 

Recently, the Cairngorms National Park and NatureScot launched the new 5-Year Capercaillie Emergency Plan, in the wake of a worrying 9% decrease in males at leks in the last year.

 

You can read the Emergency Plan, here: 

https://cairngorms.co.uk/capercaillie-emergency-plan/

 

In this Guest Article, native woodland advisor, Victor Clements, dissects the new plan in detail and asks whether we really want to save the iconic Capercaillie at all.

 

'NOT A PLAN AT ALL' by Victor Clements

 

Introduction 

 

I don’t usually say much about capercaillie and their ongoing problems in Scotland, largely because I think that their decline is inevitable, and my hopes that this could ever be reversed are not that high. My expectation is that they will die out here because it is not important enough to many people to save them. It will not happen quickly because extinction is something which takes time, and it is also difficult to prove for sure that they are definitely gone. For this reason, any actual extinction day is some time away yet. I don’t think I will see it.

 

My interest in this comes from several years of practical woodland management on mid Deeside about 20 years ago, at a time when we actually had an expanding population. At that time our forest management was not focused on capercaillie at all. It was a working forest with a thinning and felling schedule. We grazed cattle in the woods because it was an easy way of wintering them, and it was good for them. We did deer control and predator control at moderate levels, trying to create a happy medium for a range of species, including tree regeneration. The capercaillie responded positively to all of this, although at the time, that was not really our objective. They were just there. We had an expanding number of males coming to our lek sites at a time when they were going backwards elsewhere, and in 2005 I think it was, we had two of the top three capercaillie densities in Scotland after Abernethy. Unfortunately, that has changed now, and in the period since, capercaillie numbers have retreated back to a stronghold in Speyside. I say “stronghold”, but that, too, is increasingly weak.

 

In that time, the population has decreased from c 2000 to c 500 birds, when the stated plan was to have 5000 by 2020. The reduction in numbers is worrying, but more so is the reduction in range. We know the Deeside population has fallen away to very low numbers, I am not sure if there are any left in Perthshire (there might be a few), and they are now widely regarded as being extinct within the Loch Lomond & Trossachs National Park.

 

Interestingly, that population disappeared without a word from anyone. There was no acknowledgement of the fact, no debrief, no discussion about what went wrong and why, and there has been no planning whatsoever about trying to get them back again. No-one wants to talk about it. The Loch Lomond capercaillie situation has been one of the biggest wildlife scandals to have taken place in Scotland in the last 20 years, but there has not been a squeak about it from anyone in authority at all, or from our politicians. A significant element of news management has certainly been engaged to try and play it down. If capercaillie were to disappear from the Cairngorms as well, would we get to know about it officially or would they just drift away, or would anyone be held accountable? The evidence suggests no, they would not.

A book has had a very strong influence on my own thinking on this in recent years, The Capercaillie in Scotland, by JA Harvie- Brown, published in 1879. It follows the spread of capercaillie from their release on Drummond Hill in 1837, and how they moved through different straths and glens to expand their range, giving dates on when they arrived on particular estates and woods. Their re-introduction was so successful that a capercaillie was spotted flying across the Meadows in Edinburgh in 1873, just 36 years after the introduction. There are things that we can learn from this now. A different way is possible. If 36 years seems a long time to you, we have had failing capercaillie plans in Scotland for half that time already.

 

When discussing the current situation, people will say that the capercaillie population is going down because of habitat loss, predation, fence strikes, global warming or whatever, but I have long been convinced that the main problem we have is that we simply do not have enough capercaillie, and any misfortune that they may encounter is proportionately more important than if we had a larger, more robust population. There are now too few of them to get going again properly, to the extent that they cannot really take advantage of the good years. In simple terms, we need to have more capercaillie, and this is the only way in which we might save them, if indeed it is important enough to do that.

 

The Capercaillie Emergency Plan

 

The capercaillie counts undertaken in 2024 suggested a little over 500 birds left in Scotland, mostly on Speyside. The Scottish Government asked for emergency action, and an “emergency plan” was drawn up. The headline figure was almost £13 million of investment over a five year period, the detail of which can be noted below.

 

 

Prescriptions	Est 2025-30 budget	Year 1 budget 2025-26	Year  1 Funds available	% of budget
OVERSIGHT OF OPERATIONS
Research/ Monitoring	£250,000	£50,000	£15,000
Woodland expansion planning	£200,000	£100,000	£100,000
Sub Total	£450,000	£150,000	£115,000	4
PRACTICAL WOODLAND OPERATIONS
Woodland restructuring	£1,100,000	£500,000		9
Woodland grazing	£4,360,000	£871,000		34
Robocutting	£4,230,000	£845,000		33
Forest bog restoration	£1,400,000	£280,000	£280,000
Sub total	£11,090,000	£2,496,000	£280,000	86
PREDATOR ARRANGEMENTS
Diversionary Feeding	£260,000	£65,000	£0
Monitoring vole populations	£97,000	£19,400	£0
Fox/crow control	£5,000	£5,000	£0
Monitoring pine martens	£60,000	£25,000	£25,000
Sub total	£422,000	£114,400	£25,000	3
FENCE REMOVAL	£490,000	£300,000		4
REDUCE RECREATIONAL DISTURBANCE	£250,000	£40,000	£40,000	2
MONITORING
Capercaillie Monitoring	£50,000	£10,000	£0
Monitoring leks	£50,000	£10,000	£0
Monitoring morbidity/ mortality	£5,000	£5,000	£0
Sub total	£105,000	£25,000	£0	1
POPULATION REINFORCEMENT STUDY	£40,000	£40,000	£0	0.3
TOTAL	£12,847,000	£3,165,400	£460,000

 

The costs are set out in groupings, with total budget required over five years, Year 1 funds, amount actually available for Year 1 and proportion of overall budget set out in different columns.

 

There are two good things about this plan.

 

The first is that it will concentrate resources where the population is strongest, and not spread funding too thinly across the country. Strategically, that makes sense. The 1837 reintroduction concentrated resources in one place, and created such a level of productivity that bird numbers simply overflowed in every direction, sufficient to overcome any obstacles in their path. To make progress now, we need to generate levels of productivity that can overcome the sources of loss, and that is best done by putting resource in the area which stands the best chance of success. At the moment, that is within the CNPA area. If we can get things right there, then the birds will spread out again to other areas. We can’t be doing little bits and pieces here and there and expect success. We must focus our efforts and create some momentum in a stronghold area first.

 

The second good thing about this plan is that the vast majority of resources are suggested for practical works, with just five percent taken up in overall project management and monitoring and research. On the face of it, that looks pretty good.

 

The problem is that much of what is here does not stand up to much scrutiny when you really look at it, and it is not clear where most of the money is coming from, at a time when a lot of rural funding is being cut back by the Scottish Government.

 

There follows some commentary on the prescriptions suggested:

 

Overall Oversight of project

 

Although the research & monitoring budget of £250,000 looks quite high, any project that is genuinely focused on turning around the fortunes of an iconic species would have to be supported to this order of magnitude, and that does not look to be excessive when viewed from that perspective.

 

The £200,000 for woodland expansion planning would appear to cover existing capacity, especially as the funding for Year 1 appears to be in place. This looks like additional justification for existing resources. There is no problem with that if it can lever additional resource elsewhere.

 

The capercaillie monitoring budget looks to be appropriate for the project, but interesting that such a modest annual amount is not yet in place. Such work is invariably carried out by NGOs, and funding to cover the cost must continually be sought. It is surprising that such capacity is no longer in place, given the profile of the species. I suppose this emergency plan is an opportunity to get resources in place again for another five year period.

 

Practical Woodland Operations

 

It is practical forest management carried out over very large areas that can potentially impact on woodland structure and ground vegetation the most and make it more suitable for capercaillie. It has to be done on a really big scale. From the table, 86 percent of the project budget is being set aside for this, but is this effective use of money, especially with exactly two thirds of the budget or an astonishing £8.5 million being set aside for cattle grazing and vegetation cutting?

 

This is where the public and private sectors diverge in their thinking.

 

There are cattle grazing experiments going on within the park at the moment. I am not sure of the numbers of cattle or the area of pinewood involved, but the animals are individually collared and the project management costs are likely to be very high, confirmed by the money suggested in the table above, which is presumably extrapolated from such trials. It is unlikely that the animals are being “rented in” as such, or purchased especially for the project. There should be no need to do that.

 

In the real world, there are a lot of cattle on Speyside and Deeside that might benefit from being wintered in the pinewoods. Winter grazing of dry cows is relatively easy as there are fewer flies in the woods at that time, their nutrient demands are less when they are not suckling calves, the bracken is down so they are easier to find, and instead of them all requiring collars, they can effectively be “tethered by the moo”, often without the need for electric fences, the landscape being so large. The woodland advantages of eating and trampling vegetation are huge. It helps regeneration, and cattle dung is good for insects. It is excellent for the cows themselves, and saves on expensive indoor wintering for farmers, and takes pressure of buildings and other fields which can then be put to other uses. The pinewood ground vegetation will provide a significant proportion of their daily needs, bolstered by some straw if required. There is nothing not to like about cows grazing in woods.

 

I would question why funding for this is required. If pinewood owners had genuine links in the farming community, and they were welcoming of cattle grazing in the pinewoods in winter, there should be no need for subsidy to make this happen. You simply normalize the practice, which then has a value to both parties. The grazing and robotic cutting are intertwined. Obviously, this requires a change of outlook from pinewood owners, but done properly, two thirds of the proposed budget for this project could be saved, and the practice made genuinely sustainable and independent of public subsidy.

 

To emphasize the point being made here, two thirds of this proposed budget is to be used to rectify problems created by a reduction in grazing pressure in the woods to achieve regeneration. The pendulum has swung too far in that direction, and this is the result. Cattle grazing will not harm pinewood regeneration, it will only encourage it, but they will break up the dense ground vegetation. But to me, the scale required is such is that it must be addressed as a practical exercise covering many thousands of hectares, not as a fundraising or PR opportunity in smaller defined areas. For CNPA in particular, their relationship with farmers is very poor, and they have a lot to gain by forging stronger links with them, and getting this right.

Likewise, the restructuring element of the project. Restructuring of pinewoods is best carried out by thinning and felling, and not being too tidy with the forest residues that arise from this. It is also apparent that gale force winds have “restructured” many woods within Speyside in the last few years. Some of them look terrible, but in terms of habitat for a wide suite of species, including capercaillie, they are perfect. There is no need to be artificially hauling trees over with winches or blowing off their tops with dynamite. That is gardening. We should work our forests, and not be too tidy about the debris. Tolerate wind damage up to a point without being tempted to tidy up. That is the most effective way of managing habitat over a wide area, especially if you are interested in “natural processes”.

 

The ethos of how we manage habitats is important, and is probably where we differ as well. This plan assumes all actions will be funded from the public purse, which may not be possible in a time of economic difficulty, and is certainly not sustainable. Most land management works better if it is managed both for production and environment, with one covering the costs of the other, and creating the levels of disturbance within woodlands that many species need. Pinewoods and birchwoods thrive on disturbance which is essential to their basic ecological functioning. We need to throw away the cotton wool, encourage some economic use of these woodlands and that should take us to a better place.

 

The silly amounts of money in some lines of this project budget create the impression that the difficulties facing capercaillie are being used to leverage huge sums of public cash. Is it the capercaillie or the fundraising opportunity that is the priority here? This is where suspicion creeps in.

Predator Arrangements

 

Most people accept that management of capercaillie involves a mixture of habitat and predator management. The latter is important because our woodland resource is fragmented. The intervening agricultural fields and grasslands sustain rabbits and voles at higher densities than would naturally be the case if everything was woodland, and this raises the populations of generalist predators above “natural” levels. This is turn puts pressure on a wide variety of native wildlife, especially those birds which have to nest on the ground like capercaillie. We have to appreciate that our current landscape is a mixture of habitat types, some of which are “natural”, and some of which are not. Predator- prey interactions are different today to what they were 5000 years ago when a natural balance was easier to attain. Habitat management by itself will not suffice.

 

The emergency plan recognizes that predator control has a part of play, but look at the numbers. This section of the plan is just 3% of the total, and most of that is for diversionary feeding, a practice which is totally unnatural, expensive and unsustainable, and which I don’t think has ever been proven to protect the species that is the focus of protection efforts.

 

Predator control in itself is just over 1% of this 3%, or 0.04%, ultimately a slap in the face to gamekeepers who are motivated to help capercaillie, but whose efforts are obviously neither wanted nor appreciated. This is why capercaillie will die out again in Scotland. There is only a token effort to engage with those who can actually help out, and they know this. In this plan, they are an afterthought, with the amount of money allocated being a reflection of their perceived importance. There is not even an effort to value the “in kind” contribution, suggesting this is no longer on their radar at all. The plan is very clear about that.

 

 

Fence Removal

 

Twenty years ago, I understood that almost all the problem fences were gone, but we apparently need £500,000 to remove more now, implying that over that period, more and more problem fences have been erected, despite planning mitigation surrounding this point. That budget would potentially remove more than 200 kms of fence. It is difficult to believe that this exists any more in the Cairngorms. There must be a very high management contingency associated with this figure.

 

 

Reduce Recreational Disturbance

 

CNPA rangers will already be undertaking this function as part of their work programme, so this looks to be a continuation of existing arrangements, or continued justification of them. Capercaillie may be used to leverage additional resource. There is nothing wrong with that.

 

Population Reinforcement Feasibility Study

 

What this means in simple terms is introducing more capercaillie by artificial breeding. This is what happened at Drummond Hill in 1837. About 50 adult capercaillie were introduced from Sweden in Year 1, they were released in to suitable habitat to find their own space, and all predators removed which might have threatened them. Natural nesting was supplemented by removing eggs and placing these under grey hens, and chicks multiplied up in this way. There was a focus on generating numbers.

 

In today’s terms, with some capercaillie left and not yet totally extinct, what we would be thinking about is local reintroductions.

 

The problem with this is the hoops to be jumped through. To artificially introduce more capercaillie back to an area, you are supposed to:

 

1. Demonstrate that they are locally extinct (proving extinction is very difficult)
2. Understand why they became extinct (people will never agree on this)
3. Address the reason why they became extinct and make sure that this is no longer a limiting factor. See No 2.

 

Of course, capercaillie have been declining, and will ultimately go extinct here, because of a range of different problems, the exact contribution from each being difficult to understand and quantify, and this being disputed by all those involved. It is the ultimate case of “paralysis by analysis”.

 

The chances of having an effective system of local reintroductions for capercaillie are almost non- existent at present, and yet moving sea eagles, red squirrels or beavers is no big deal. We are breeding and releasing wild cats in Scotland now, and doing this BEFORE extinction has been verified in the wild or the threats removed, seemingly because the threat to the species is so high.

 

The situation with capercaillie is exactly the same in that the direction of travel is clear, we more or less know the reasons why, and there are people out there who can raise and release them effectively if given the chance to do so.

 

The problem we have of course is land management politics. A chasm has opened up between farmers and gamekeepers on one side, and NGOs and government agencies on the other over the past 15-20 years or so. Issues like this require the public, private and third sector to work together, but that is not happening. A lot of gamekeepers have long suspected, and I have sympathy with this view, that the objective of the NGOs in particular is not to have a sustainable capercaillie population, because that would remove a key arm of their fundraising campaign. NGOs require species to be under threat, and they need to put themselves forward as the solution. Other people must be portrayed as part of the problem or a threat. This is how charity fundraising currently works. A bird under threat is much more valuable than a self- sustaining population.

What I think is this: saving and expanding the capercaillie population in Scotland is a practical exercise which has to be undertaken on a landscape scale. Farmers, forestors and gamekeepers have the skills required to do this. The NGOs and government agencies do not. The former are also motivated to do it, and that is important too. We need to remove the chains tying people down, and let them have a go. Given where we are, there is little harm that can be done. Leave some of the other species to NGOs and government by all means, but leave the capercaillie to people who do have the skills to address the problem, and we can compare and contrast the outcomes another day.

 

There is an elephant in the woods of course, and we all know what that is. Several predators of capercaillie are protected, and given the choice between the capercaillie and their predators, many people would rather have the predators.

 

To stand any chance of overcoming this, we do need to be producing capercaillie on a much larger scale, enough of them so that they can overcome moderate levels of predator pressure and get away. In 1837, predator control could be conducted at a level that would not be tolerated today, but the birds did have other pressures from day one, including people shooting them, which is not the case today. My instinct is that to escape protected predators, we need more capercaillie being produced, and if we can breed wildcats to supplement their populations, then we can do it with capercaillie as well, and that is part of the solution.

The emergency plan suggests a feasibility study in Year 1, which is good, but is only putting 0.3% of the budget against it, which demonstrates the priority being given to this.

 

Summary

 

The emergency plan is not really a plan at all. It is little better than the Species Action Framework (SAF) plan for capercaillie 20 years ago which set a target population of 5000 birds by 2020, and only achieved 10 percent of that. More accurately, it achieved a reduction in numbers of about 70 percent. The plan was described as “aspirational” when it became clear it would never deliver. Ie “We did not literally mean that we would get 5000 birds. That was just an aspiration, not something for us to be judged on”.

 

With this plan, too much money is being sought for actions that can be done in better ways, and the small token amount suggested for predator control sends out a very strong signal that input from gamekeepers is not being sought or valued. Signals are important, and people get the message from this.

 

What is required is an approach that values the skills that farmers, forestors and gamekeepers can bring to the table, but we are not seeing that here. Such an input would reduce the overall public funding required, increase the chances of success, and make everything more sustainable in the longer term.

 

The feasibility study for reintroductions may be the most useful element, but only if it consults widely and openly, and this is the best way of increasing numbers, which is what we need. If we can get a bigger population, then any sources of loss will become proportionately less damaging, and we might make some progress on this.

 

The question is, do we really want to save the capercaillie, or are other calculations more important? If we can answer that, then maybe we can go forwards with more confidence and certainty of outcome.

 

I would like to see the capercaillie saved if that is possible. It is not possible under current management.

 

 

Victor Clements is a native woodland advisor working in Highland Perthshire. He advises a number of deer management groups, has been involved with practical capercaillie conservation in the past, and wears a capercaillie lapel badge in sympathy with the species and their current predicament.