The capercaillie is at real risk of extinction in the UK, with only 542 of the birds estimated to be left in Scotland, according to new data.
The population has dropped around 50 per cent since the last survey six years ago and is now at a critically low level, the latest national survey has found. Numbers of capercaillie have been declining since the third national survey of 2003/04, but this is the first time the population has dipped below 1,000.
Conservation scientists said the decline is being fuelled by a combination of factors which reduce capercaillie survival and breeding success. These include cold, wet spring weather which has an impact on the fitness of female birds before the breeding season and affects chick survival, along with predation and a habitat which remains fragmented in places despite ongoing work to enhance it.
