Is the Capercaillie Going to Be the Scottish Dodo? –

‘Horse of theWoods’ Under Threat

In Gaelic the capercaillie  is  ‘the horse of woods’ and it is a creature on the decline. Pundits have blamed global warming and  too many people  blundering through its woodland habitats for the  decline of one of Scotland’s rarest birds. The large colourful bird was reintroduced to Scotland in 1837 after being hunted to extinction the previous century. There were 2,000 across Scotland in 1970, but the numbers have been in steep decline ever since and the wet spring and lack of insect life for new chicks have been blamed this year.

Super Sized Scottish Bird

Capercaillies which can grow to 16lbs, or 7.25 kilos, are the largest member of the grouse family and are now included on the “red list” of species of highest conservation concern. The latest national survey shows that numbers have declined to just 1,114 birds — down from 1,285 in 2010. a population just half the size it was in 1993, when the first survey estimated that there were 2,200. Many of the horse of the forest casualties are when the large birds collide with forestry deer fences designed to keep the four legged beasties from devastating forests with unchecked grazing. Four out of five of Scottish capercaillies are found in Strathspey and the population there is crucial to the survival of the breed. But it is unlikely that the giant bird will suffer the fate of the Dodo which had a single habitat on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius as there are good sized populations of the birds in the rest of northern Europe and the current population here was introduced from Sweden after the extinction here in the eighteenth century.

Scottish Brands not under Threat

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