Capercaillie face fox snare threat

SCOTLAND’S most endangered bird - the capercaillie - is being threatened by a huge rise in the number of fox snares being set by gamekeepers.

The keepers on Highland estates are setting the snares legally to protect the red grouse that bring millions of pounds every year into the rural economy from wealthy shooters.

But scientists claim that capercaillie, and other officially protected species such as wild cats, are being killed by the fox traps. At least three breeding sites in the Cairngorms have already been cleared of the birds.

Now the European Union, which has put £2.5m into a capercaillie protection programme in Scotland, has written to the Scottish Executive to urge it to reduce the death toll.

Only 1,000 capercaillie remain in the wild and they could be extinct within 20 years.

Dr Robert Moss, a fellow emeritus at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Banchory, said: "Setting snares throughout a forest has the inevitable consequence that non-target species such as capercaillie are illegally killed."

A spokesman for the government-backed protection programme said gamekeepers had now been asked to keep the use of snares to a minimum.