Capercaillie Emergency Plan 2025 - 2030 - Flipbook - Page 33
Across the Cairngorms Connect partnership area, land managers have also
been reducing the deer population through a collaborative programme of
stalking to enable the removal of deer fences.
To inform further action, the Cairngorms Capercaillie Project recruited and
trained a team of dedicated Fence Monitoring Volunteers who have walked
over 200km of fence lines in capercaillie areas to record the status of fences
and marking. With these records the project has created a comprehensive
database of fences and their status in capercaillie areas.
Objective
Reduce the net amount of fencing in core capercaillie areas.
Actions by 2030
1. Maximise opportunities in the current FGS budget and seek improved funding
as part of the FGS review in 2025 / 26 to cover all costs involved in fence
removal, marking and conversion to stock fencing within dispersal distances
of active capercaillie lek sites and on landholdings of all sizes.
2. Target the removal or marking of unmarked fences that remains within
1km of active lek sites (c15km of fencing), within 1km - 3km (c86km of
fencing) within 3 - 5km (c156km of fencing).
3. Continue to seek private investment to support fence removal, marking and
conversion of deer fences to stock fences.
4. Support existing Fence Monitoring Volunteers and recruit and train more
volunteers to check and record the status of fences in the field and assist
with fence marking and removal.
5. Update the fence inventory by integrating fence information held by Scottish
Forestry and put mechanisms in place to maintain this flow of information.
6. Work with Scottish Forestry to identify all new woodland creation fences that
have been approved or constructed to identify where marking is outstanding
and or removal is possible.
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