The Director General of Environmental Assessment and Quality and the Natural Environment of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Guillermina Yanguas, has attended, at the headquarters of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry itself, the meeting with the General Directors of the entities and administrations that participate in the LIFE+ Cantabrian Capercaillie conservation project. The objective of the meeting was to learn about the progress made and define the steps to be taken to try to stop the decline of this endangered subspecies.
 
This meeting, chaired by Sonia Castañeda, director of the Biodiversity Foundation, was also attended by Francisco Javier Manrique, Director General of Forestry and Nature Conservation of the Government of Cantabria, Serafina Álvarez, Director General of Natural Resources of the Principality of Asturias, José Ángel Arranz, Director General of the Natural Environment of the Junta de Castilla y León, Rafael Landín, Director of the Iberdrola Foundation, and Asunción Ruiz, Executive Director of SEO/BirdLife. The Project Management Committee also participated, represented by the director of the project, Ignacio Torres.
 
At the meeting, it was agreed to carry out a scientific monitoring programme of the results obtained, to evaluate the effectiveness of these measures in the medium and long term and to verify compliance with the objectives set. To this end, the guidelines established in the technical documents prepared within the framework of the project will be followed, and work will be carried out together with the Scientific Committee, where all beneficiary partners and experts from national and international scientific and academic institutions participate.
 
On the other hand, the results of the breeding programme of the Sobrescobio centre (Redes Natural Park, Asturias) have been commented on, underlining the complexity of the breeding process and the programme of capture, marking and removal of clutches, which have also hindered the development of the reinforcement programme. The ultimate objective is to obtain specimens prepared for release into the wild environment and that can be part of the wild population, obtaining higher productivity figures and improving the results obtained in the last three years. The possibility of distributing the genetic stock among more centers has also been contemplated.
 
Likewise, the need to carry out a census of the two populations of capercaillie in Spain – Cantabrian and Pyrenean – has been stressed, to make an estimate of the national population and evaluate its current state of conservation.   
 
The LIFE+ Cantabrian Capercaillie, coordinated by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, has as its main objective to stop the decline of this subspecies exclusive to the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and promote its recovery. The project, 50% co-financed through the LIFE+ programme, the European Union’s financial instrument for the environment, has as partners the Autonomous Communities of Cantabria, the Principality of Asturias and Castilla y León, the latter through the Natural Heritage Foundation of Castilla y León; the Interregional Consortium for the Coordinated Management of the Picos de Europa National Park; Tragsa and Tragsatec, SEO/BirdLife and with funding from the Autonomous National Parks Agency and the Iberdrola Foundation.