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| 'Horse of the wood' - is the population decline of the capercaillie now irreversible? |
Speech by Baron Thomas of Gresford as recorded in a Hansard report of proceedings in House of Lords on April 28, 1999:
This is the season when the male capercaillie is most active in its breeding displays on the leks.
For many years, Mr. Jimmy Oswald, who is well known to some of your Lordships in the House tonight, has kept a count in Glen Tanar, one of the few remaining habitats on Deeside, which is designated a special protection area.
He tells me that last year he counted 170 birds, but this year, despite trampling the whole of the estate for a period in excess of a fortnight, he has counted only 14.
That indicates an accelerating trend which is perhaps worse than the most pessimistic forecasts.
It was believed that there were approximately 2,200 birds left in Scotland a year or two ago, compared with the 20,000-odd in the 1960s and 1970s.
But even these estimates predicted a drop in the number of females from 1,467 in 1994 to 206 in 2003. Therefore, those pessimistic forecasts from the past are today, some four years in advance, being met in a count on the ground.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that the capercaillie is a magnificent bird.
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| A retired solicitor, Wrexham-born Lord Thomas (now 86) is the son of a policeman. He is the Liberal-Democrat spokesman in the Lords on Welsh affairs |
I was amused to be advised today by my noble friend Lord Avebury that the word comes from the ancient Gaelic, capull coille, and that customarily in the 15th and 16th centuries it was spelt with a Z.
I was not aware of that.
It is an expression which means "the horse of the wood".
A cock bird can weigh up to eight or nine pounds and stand more than two feet tall, with the most magnificent colours: slate grey, a black beard of feathers on the throat, a brilliant red patch of skin above the eye and a glossy blue/green mottled white breast.
It has feathered legs and in display it puffs out a black fantail, mottled with white. The female is more elegantly subdued with buff, black and greyish-white plumage and a reddish breast.
Its diet is blaeberries, pine needles and conifer shoots.
Although it is of turkey size, I am told that it is not much to eat.
Indeed, a ghillie on the Glen Tanar estate told me that as a boy his mother would stuff a capercaillie to take away the pine flavour.
She would make sure to throw the potatoes away, but even so he was not a fan of what he ate because the taste was something resembling an air freshener!
I understand that the capercaillie is fierce when roused.
My noble friend Lady Linklater tells me that there was a caper living near the woods near her home when she was young and newly married.
It was familiarly called "Stanley", which is a very appropriate name.
It would puff up its throat feathers, fan out its tail and chase her away. That brings a rather pleasant picture into the mind. On one occasion, it knocked down her nine year-old son!
As your Lordships are aware, its habitat is wide in Scotland, through Aberdeenshire, Kincardine, Moray, Inverness and West Perthshire.
So far, five special protection areas have been designated at Abernethy, the Cairngorms, Glen Tanar, Ballochbuie and Loch Lomond. There is another proposed and in the pipeline.
What are the causes of the decline which have so disastrously hit this glorious bird?
The Institute for Terrestrial Ecology at Banchory and RSPB Scotland agree that the cause of the decline is poor breeding.
There are a number of reasons for that. The first is the reduction in and disturbance of habitat.
It is curious that eager birdwatchers at lekking displays, or walkers stumbling upon lekking displays, can cause as much disruption to the cycle as anything else.
It is fortunate that previous reductions of habitat have been checked and restored, but I have been told by Mr. Nigel Buxton, of Scottish Natural Heritage, that despite the restoration of habitat, the rapid decline has not ceased.
Perhaps the worst cause of the deaths of capercaillie is deer fence collisions.
Mr. Bob Moss of the Institute for Terrestrial Ecology is of the view that flying into fences is the main single cause of deaths among young and full-grown capercaillie, particularly in spring, when females home in on the males on the leks and are caught in the unseen fence.
Mr. Moss considers that if fence deaths had been halved, the decline would not have occurred, despite the poor breeding which is the fundamental cause of the birds' imminent extinction.
A study documented by the RSPB at Abernethy and Glen Tanar found no fewer than four dead capercaillie per kilometre of fence per month; the highest death rate being between September and November, when the capercaillie disperse.
Some 32 two per cent of capers that had been radio-tagged were found to have been killed by fence collisions.
In 93 per cent of the cases documented in the studies, caper collisions with deer fences were fatal.
Deer fences are important in considering the decline of the capercaillie, but there is also over-grazing by deer and sheep, and the suppressing of growth of the blaeberry plants needed by the birds for food and shelter.
In addition, pollution and climate change have undoubtedly had an effect on insect life in Scotland, as those of us who know the area are only too well aware.
Moreover, chicks which hatch in the late spring, when there is insufficient food to support them, will not survive.
Fox snares are a further cause of decline when set in capercaillie leks, although perfectly legally set by keepers.
It is said that one Deeside keeper has inadvertently snared five cocks in leks in the past two years.
Therefore, it is important that the snaring of foxes be carefully controlled and carefully carried out.
I have outlined the problem, but what can be done about it?
Some of your Lordships may feel that conservation is harmful to the preservation of the deer, but that is not the view that I take.
It is true that the loss of areas of native Caledonian pine has been reversed due to the enlightened activities of Forest Enterprise and environmental charities.
Private landowners have been actively and enthusiastically engaged.
Tribute must be paid to the landowners for the concern and care they have taken over the years to maintain the capercaillie birds.
It is essential that redundant deer fences be removed.
There are many ways of controlling deer, but building deer fences and maintaining them after the trees they are supposed to protect have grown to a sufficient height is a way of ensuring that the capercaillie birds are wiped out.
A policy of forest restoration in the Abernethy Forest - a forest owned by the RSPB -involving removal of all the fences has seen a net increase in the population.
That is a positive indication of the way in which things can change.
There is an obligation under Article 8 of the birds directive, which prohibits, all means, arrangements or methods … capable of causing the local disappearance of a species.
Under that directive, redundant deer fences, or existing deer fences, could be made less fatal to the capercaillie by their replacement with plastic, wooden or electric fences, or by their clear marking so that the birds can see them easily as they fly in.
Your Lordships should note that woodland improvement grants are available from the Forestry Authority for woodland biodiversity enhancement.
The deer management groups, which play an important role in Scotland and with which landowners are involved, are those to whom people concerned about the capercaillie should turn for discussion and for the working out of appropriate plans to preserve the bird.
Throughout Scotland, landowners have imposed a voluntary ban on shooting. The co-operation of landowners is vital to its success.
The killing of capercaillie by snares set for foxes is prohibited. So those who set those snares must take appropriate care.
But the RSPB and others believe that the number of special protected areas should be at least doubled.
There are capercaillie on some 20 to 30 estates. It is crucially important that further special protected areas are designated in those areas where the capercaillie still exists in numbers.
Today is almost too late. The capercaillie is nearly gone. It may be said that, effectively, it has gone.
We do not ask for further committee meetings, assemblies or discussions to take place at some future time.
We are asking for action which will protect a species which decorates and enhances the Caledonian forest, itself a living remnant from the long-gone Ice Age.
The capercaillie depends upon an environment which is healthy and free at least from man-made hazards.
It is in itself a reminder of the strength of the past and, at the same time, of the fragility of the Scottish landscape.
We cannot afford to lose a single part of the intricate machine which makes up the diverse and beautiful country that is Scotland.
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