The Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture is developing a project to protect the capercaillie from extinction.

“Evaluation of data collection methodologies for the demographic estimation of Pyrenean capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus aquitanicus) populations: applications for the conservation of the species” is a project of the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture that has the support of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and the Environment.

The Pyrenean capercaillie has maintained a regressive trend in its northern and southern Pyrenean populations in the last three decades, with local extinctions in certain valleys and peripheral areas. The population estimates that have been made are based, to date, on the censuses of males in the mating season in the so-called “quarries”, in such a way that the number of males obtained is multiplied by two to estimate the number of male and female specimens of the total population. Despite being an estimation technique, both pre-adult birds, which do not enter the heat phase, and non-breeding individuals for different reasons are excluded from them.

The result of this methodology gives rise to undervalued population data, so the use of new techniques is proposed, such as those based on genetic individualization from feces (non-invasive technique). Different methodologies for data acquisition and analysis are being compared (population estimation by direct observation in capercaillie “quarries” and estimation by genetic individualization of specimens) to review and determine which are the most efficient, in order to increase the information available for the evaluation of the conservation status of this species and to assess whether this measure can be applied to partial or total sectors of certain populations of the species