Status and Conservation
This species has an estimated range of 1-10 million square kilometers (0.38-3.8 million sq mi.) and a population of between 1.5 and 2 million individuals in Europe alone. There is some evidence of a population decline, but the species is not believed to approach the IUCN Red List thresholds of a population decline of more than 30% in ten years or three generations, and is therefore is evaluated as Least Concern.
As reported by the late Spanish researcher Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in his "Fauna" series, the NW Spanish subspecies Tetrao urogallus cantabricus-an Ice Age remnant-was threatened in the 1960s by commercial gathering of holly fruit-bearing branches for sale as Christmas ornaments -a practice imported from Anglo-Saxon or Germanic countries.
In Scotland, the population has declined greatly since the 1960s because of deer fencing, predation and lack of suitable habitat (Caledonian Forest). The population plummeted from a high of 10,000 pairs in the 1960s to less than 1000 birds in 1999. It was even named as the bird most likely to become extinct in the UK by 2015. However, due to the hard work of the RSPB and other organisations it may now be making a modest recovery.
Read more about this topic: Western Capercaillie
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