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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jpoyner" data-source="post: 3559980" data-attributes="member: 2574"><p>Ironically Caper did far better on sporting estates when managed for shooting, with little success to date by conservationists despite funding of millions of pounds. Some of the largest leks were in woodland where keepers ensured few if any predators. This seems to suggest to me that without creating this unnatural habitat for them to thrive, they really don't do too well in Scotland's wet climate combined with predators such as Pine Marten. It would also be useful if figures from a winter survey carried out 18 months ago were released .....no idea why it's taking so long and these results are being sat on? The RSPB bought Abernethy in 1988.....that's 30 years to solve the problem and numbers are now lower than ever. Conservation has failed no matter how much spin they try to put out on how well they are doing in other forests. Caper are now retreating in to higher and more remote forest, a known indication of a population becoming critical from other studies. It's not looking good and at the end of the day we may have to just resign ourselves to this bird never really being suited to the harsher Scottish climate without extreme management ?</p></blockquote><p></p>