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BTO Blueline
RED GROUSE
Lagopus lagopus
Red Grouse © G H Higginbotham
 

• Population
  changes

• Productivity
  trends

• Additional
  information
Conservation listings
Europe: no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK: amber (25–50% population decline)
Long-term trend
UK: decline
UK population size
155,000 pairs in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using GCT gamebag data: BiE04, APEP06)
Status summary
The distinctive dark-winged race scotica is endemic to Britain and Ireland and has the vast bulk of its population within the UK. BBS shows no overall trend since 1994. Shooting bags have revealed long-term declines, apparently driven by loss of heather moorland, increased predation from corvids and foxes, and an increasing incidence of viral disease (Hudson 1992, Newton 2004), which have prompted the move of the species from the Green to the Amber List. Raptor predation is believed not to affect breeding populations significantly, although it can reduce post-breeding abundance (Redpath & Thirgood 1997). Red Grouse abundance varies in cycles, with periods that vary regionally, that are linked to the dynamics of infection by a nematode parasite (Dobson & Hudson 1992, Gibbons et al. 1993). All population data should therefore be interpreted in this context.
 

Population changes
BBS UK graph
 
BBS acknowledgement
 
BBS England graph
BBS Scotland graph
 

Productivity trends
Productivity information is not currently available for this species
 

Additional information
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This report should be cited as:
Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Crick, H.Q.P., Noble, D.G., Balmer, D.E., Coombes, R.H.,
Downie, I.S., Freeman, S.N., Joys, A.C., Leech, D.I., Raven, M.J., Robinson, R.A. and Thewlis, R.M. (2006)
Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2005.
BTO Research Report No. 435. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends)

Pages maintained by Susan Waghorn and Iain Downie: Last updated 28 April, 2006