The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment highlights the importance of joining forces in the conservation of the Cantabrian capercaillie

The Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment has held an informative seminar in Potes (Cantabria), in which the situation of the Cantabrian capercaillie has been addressed and the main management measures promoted within the framework of the LIFE+ Cantabrian capercaillie project for the conservation of this endangered species have been presented.
 
At the opening of the seminar Advances on the LIFE+ Cantabrian Capercaillie project, the director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Sonia Castañeda, stressed that “the LIFE+ Cantabrian Capercaillie project has managed to strengthen the efforts of the state administration, the autonomous communities involved in the management of the Cantabrian capercaillie, civil society and the business sector in the conservation of this endemic subspecies of the Cantabrian mountain range. Together we are laying the foundations for its conservation and we trust that time will be our greatest ally when it comes to evaluating the actions we are promoting with this initiative.”
 
The meeting was attended by the Sub-Directorate General of the Natural Environment of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment; the General Directorate of Forestry and Nature Conservation of the Government of Cantabria and the Iberdrola Foundation.
 
During the day, the project partners presented the main initiatives that have been carried out since the beginning of the project in 2010. In the field of ecosystem management, action has been taken on more than 230 hectares to create a more favourable habitat, improving safety, shelter and availability of food for the Cantabrian capercaillie. Among these actions, scrub clearing and tree treatments have been carried out to promote the growth of blueberries and other shrubs, key in the capercaillie diet. More than 30 km of power lines and dangerous livestock fences have also been removed or signposted.
 
In relation to the actions to increase the number of specimens, there is the program to reinforce the capercaillie population and the captive breeding center located in Sobrescobio (Asturias). Within the framework of the project, the first experiences of releasing specimens into the natural environment have been carried out. After spending two months in the wild, in which they fed autonomously, thus demonstrating a good possibility of adapting to life in the wild, they died from various causes, such as predation or the effects of the snowstorm that hit the area exceptionally intensely at that time.
 
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
Within the framework of the project, land stewardship activities have been carried out, a tool that seeks to establish voluntary agreements between owners, non-profit entities and other public and private agents that have a positive impact on the owners, their territories and, in this case, on the conservation of the capercaillie. Since the beginning of the project, 29 land stewardship agreements have been signed.
 
Among the dissemination and environmental education actions, the volunteer program has been carried out in which 72 volunteers have been involved in the improvement of the habitat of the capercaillie and school workshops have been organized in which more than 2,000 students have participated. Likewise, various informative materials have been designed, such as a traveling exhibition, children’s stories or documentaries about the species and the project.
 
SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
The town of Potes has also hosted the meeting of the scientific committee, which has the participation of all the beneficiary partners and scientific and academic institutions. At this meeting, the studies being carried out by the University of Valladolid on the evaluation of the actions undertaken in habitat management and, on the other, by the Spanish Society for the Conservation and Study of Mammals (SECEM), which is analysing the impact of predation on Cantabrian capercaillie populations, were explained.
 
Likewise, a meeting was held on the breeding process, in which other poultry breeders at the national level participated, who presented their recommendations for the improvement of this process.
 
LIFE+ CANTABRIAN CAPERCAILLIE
The LIFE+ 09 NAT/ES/000513 project “Programme of urgent actions for the conservation of the capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus cantabricus) and its habitat in the Cantabrian Mountains” 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 Cantabrian capercaillie is one of the most endangered species in the Iberian Peninsula. It has disappeared from 60% of the places it occupied just three decades ago, with populations already extinct in Galicia and Palencia. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that there are between 200 and 300 males left in the forests of Asturias, León and Cantabria.
 
The actions of the project aim to improve their conservation status and that of their habitat, promote environmental education and encourage awareness and participation in society. The area of action includes 16 SPAs of the Natura 2000 Network in the Cantabrian Mountains and is developed between October 2010 and December 2016.
The project, coordinated by the Biodiversity Foundation, is 50% co-financed by the European Union through the LIFE+ funds, and 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 Inter-regional Consortium for the coordinated management of the Picos de Europa National Park; SEO/BirdLife, Tragsa and Tragsatec and with funding from the Autonomous National Parks Agency and the Iberdrola Foundation.