Capercaillie numbers still declining

[Big Jon]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12867150

Interesting that despite massive amounts spent trying to preserve them, Capercaillies numbers are still declining. Still look at the silver lining - no Capers, no restrictions in many of the best Scottish Forests.

[Jethro]

Jon, you must wander about in more Scottish forests than most people. Is it your perception that there are fewer "forest Turkeys" flying about or is this just a bit of PR to try and secure some more funding?

[andypat]

I think its a bit of both. Pretty sure numbers as low as 1000 have been quoted for a number of years.

[Big Jon]

I haven't seen as many in Deeside forests as 15-20 years ago, but there still are reasonable numbers. Cold wet weather in May kills the chicks from hypothermia and is my bet for the decline in numbers, so all the fence removal/marking, public exclusion, caper reserves etc is all just fiddling at the edges. If the weather is bad the capers are all doomed, doomed (as private Fraser used to say).

[EddieH]

Fence removasl must have an effect as a considerable number of birds were found dead having flown into them. The caper is a very large and aggressive bird quite capable of taking a chunk out of a human. I doubt that disturbance is a major factor in their decline at all and as Big J says poor May weather compared with what we used to have is iundoubtedly the main factor.

Quite ironical that the caper is a game bird and right up to the sudden recent restrictions it was perfectly legal to shoot them all . As a species they are also in no global danger being abundant in Northern Europe.

[binman]

They might be declining but a major Deeside forest has just had a big chunk lopped off it for a 'protected species'. Don't know for sure it's Caper (could be the big fishing bird maybe) and will be trying to find out (unofficially of course, because it is an offence to reveal the location of a protected species apparantly).

[Big Jon]

Cambus O'May is a Capercaillie reserve (as is Pannanich) and so the FC have banned us from Pann and even more severely restricted access to Cambus than before. they claim they can do this...... no one else seems to know about this right....

[IanD]

A landowner who tries to make his living out of providing facilities for the public once told me that if he discovered a Capercallie on his land, he would shoot it before the authorities found out. The restrictions which would be imposed to "protect" the bird would bankrupt him.

I suspect his attitude is quite common, it's the over-reaction of some conservationists which is the biggest threat to the bird's survival.

[andypat]

The odd thing is that Capercaillie seem on the whole to prefer fairly dense forest with really scrubby thigh deep undergrowth, not on the whole the sort of nice runnable forest I prefer. Trouble is they are greedy buggers and wont stay put!

[redkite]

Ian D said
[quote]suspect his attitude is quite common, it's the over-reaction of some conservationists which is the biggest threat to the bird's survival.[quote]

I have been helping to manage a small nature reserve in Cardiff for many years. The other year someone found doremice on the reserve. A protected species. As a result we have now been stoppped from doing all the stuff we have been doing for the last 20 years, (and the doremice obviously like) whilst a covnservtion strategy is devised by someone who doesnot really know the reserve. Barking mad.

Interestingly, the reason doremice are protected is because they are suposedly endangered. In reality they are not uncommon. They are just not counted very much.

[graeme]

The research points to the predatory marten as a possible culprit in the capercaillie's further decline.

This survey found no evidence to suggest that martens are impacting upon
capercaillie breeding success.

Why do we have to listen to these people ?

Title refers to the 23% scat misidentification in the report.