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Grouse house at the click of a mouse

December 10, 2001

Ecologists at Aberdeen University have developed a new computer tool that could help save the capercaillie from extinction in Scotland. Speaking at the British Ecological Society’s Winter Meeting, to be held at the University of Warwick on 18–20 December 2001, Dr Keith Marshall will explain that the new computer model can be used to predict which Scottish forests are likely to offer the most suitable habitat for capercaillie.

The largest member of the grouse family, the capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) is found in central and north-east Scotland. Much of the population lives in commercial forests because so little remains of the semi-natural Caledonian pinewoods that the capercaillie prefers.

Dr Marshall developed the computer model by describing commercial forests in terms of 30 different habitat types. These were then given to capercaillie experts and forest managers who decided which habitats would suit the birds best. The result is a computer tool that will allow commercial forests to be managed to accommodate the capercaillie at the same time as meeting timber output targets.

“The computer model could be developed into a user-friendly tool that could be on every forester’s desktop, allowing them to make decisions that will help the capercaillie to survive in Scotland,” Dr Marshall says.

The last national survey conducted in the winter of 1998/99 found only about 1,100 capercaillie surviving in Scotland. The capercaillie became extinct in the 1770s but was reintroduced to Scotland from Scandinavia in 1837. Capercaillie numbers peaked between the wars, and reached over 20,000 again in the early 1970s, since when they have crashed. Ecologists think that loss and fragmentation of habitat, changes in rainfall patterns affecting food supply for capercaillie chicks, fatal collisions with deer fences, as well as disturbance and predation may all be contributing to the species’ current decline in Scotland.

Dr Marshall will present his full findings at 09.20 on Wednesday 19 December 2001.

British Ecological Society (BES)