Black grouse population recovers

Rare black grouse are fighting back this year after numbers tumbled to an all-time low in 2010, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust has said.

Numbers of male black grouse in northern England had climbed to 1,200 in 2007, but cold and rainy summers in 2007 and 2008, followed by the extremely harsh winter in 2009-10, saw the population decline to just 500 last year.

However, the latest spring counts of the species showed the male population had grown to 820 this year, with a fightback in the stronghold of the North Pennines and a boost in numbers from 90 to 131 in the Yorkshire Dales.

Despite the turnaround in the bird’s fortune, the GWCT warned that an isolated population in northwest Northumberland was facing imminent extinction as the number of males collapsed to just six, down from 100 recorded in 2002.

GWCT scientist Phil Warren said the black grouse’s future in Northumberland was “very bleak”, with no prospect of the population being swelled by birds from Scotland as habitat connections with the Borders had been lost.

He said that overall black grouse had benefited from a good summer in 2010, and had not been as badly affected by the snow and icy conditions this winter, as the cold did not last for nearly as long as the previous year.