Capercaillie vs Pine Marten

An article in The Scotsman highlights concerns about the future of Capercaillie that are resulting in contrasting views on what action to take.   GWCT monitoring indicates that the 'species is in rapid and ongoing decline' while the pine marten population has increased.  Opinion about what to do varies between: catch up pine martens during the capercaillie breeding season and release them later in the year, catch up and translocate them, provide diversionary food dumps, or flood Scotland with imported birds from Scandinavia to saturate the pine marten need.

Is this a case where a decision needs to be made to do something on the basis that some action must be better than none?  I fear there is a danger that contrasting views will produce inaction, which will mean that all the effort will end up just overseeing the demise of Capercaillie.

Heads up for Harriers

Photo: RSPB Scotland

See the BBC News article for information about the Partnership against Wildlife Crime (PAW)  initiative that has been launched by the Minister for Environment, Paul Wheelhouse, MSP.  This initiative applies the 'citizen science' concept and encourages members of the public to report sightings of Hen Harriers to improve national records of this species.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) will record the information and details of how to take part are available on the PAW website, which has more details about the initiative.

Abundance of Scottish Terrestrial Breeding Birds

Photo: Patrick Laurie

Reprinted from a Statistical News Release circulated by SNH.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has today released the latest figures tracking the abundance of Scotland’s terrestrial breeding birds 1994 - 2011.

Over the long term, the abundance of terrestrial breeding birds increased by 11% from 1994 to 2011 (using the smoothed indices – see note 2). Farmland and woodland birds have increased (by 12% and 44% respectively) and upland birds have decreased by 11%.

Between 2010 and 2011, the main findings show that the abundance of all-species, woodland, and farmland terrestrial breeding birds were unchanged overall. However, the upland bird index decreased by 8%. The reasons for changes are not known for certain. Some evidence points towards land use changes as a possible cause. The recent harsh winters in 2009 and 2010 may have also had an effect on some of our resident birds such as wrens and robins.

Notes for editors
1. The full statistical publication can be accessed at: http://www.snh.gov.uk/publications-data-and-research/officialstatistics/official-stats/terrestrial-breeding-birds
2. Smoothed indices are a statistical way of removing the year to year fluctuations that naturally appear, for example because of weather conditions or sampling
variations, to allow the underlying trend to be more easily seen.
3. The data used in the report primarily come from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds (RSPB) Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) (http://www.bto.org/volunteersurveys/bbs )
4. Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff in accordance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
5. Scottish Natural Heritage is the government's adviser on all aspects of nature and landscape across Scotland. Our role is to help everyone understand, value and
enjoy Scotland's nature now and in the future. For more information, visit our website at www.snh.gov.uk. SNH media is also now on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/SNH_Tweets
6. Trend notes can be found at http://www.snh.gov.uk/publications-data-andresearch/trends/scotlands-trends/