Capercaillie Emergency Plan 2025 - 2030 - Flipbook - Page 43
8. Capercaillie monitoring
Monitoring productivity
Guidance from NatureScot concludes that brood counts will not have an adverse
effect on site integrity so long as counts are only carried out in Special Protection
Areas (SPA) with more than 10 hens present. Brood counts are therefore prohibited
from SPAs where there are less than 10 hens present, and specifically prohibited
from Glen Tanar SPA and Ballochbuie SPA based on the conclusions of HRAs.
Recently, brood counts for capercaillie using dogs have been conducted on
Rothiemurchus Estate, Castle Grant on Seafield and Strathspey Estate and in
Baddengorm Wood and Tolquhonie Wood. Of these sites, only Rothiemurchus Estate
falls within an SPA so could qualify for a licence to conduct brood counts subject to
hen records. Historically, counts have also been conducted in the Kinveachy SPA on
Seafield and Strathspey Estate which, in 2023 had 12 hens present.
In the past, brood counts have also been conducted on other landholdings including
the Abernethy SPA. In 2019, the RSPB took the decision to stop conducting brood
counts using dogs to reduce disturbance and because the method was known to
cause mortalities to capercaillie. As part of the Cairngorms Connect Predator Project
and working with the University of Aberdeen, RSPB have since begun to trial an
alternative method of counting broods using trail cameras placed at dust baths. This
has seen close to 1 million images captured by cameras at dust baths and research
is now underway to develop AI to successfully identify images captured of
capercaillie to provide an indication of productivity.
Objective
Enable the development and delivery of methods for monitoring capercaillie
productivity that gather necessary ecological data at scale but do not require the
use of dogs.
Actions by 2030
1. Identify ways to fast-track the training of AI to be able to identify images of
capercaillie at different life stages.
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