Turning population ecology into conservation strategy: development of a Natural Care Scheme for red-billed choughs in Scotland

Humans are increasingly modifying and exploiting natural habitats. Populations of wild animals are consequently declining. Given this situation, there is general agreement that we must invest resources in managing and conserving populations of economic and intrinsic value. This philosophy is underpinned by national and international legislation, and by activities of governmental and non-governmental organisations such as Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which has over a million members. In practice, management strategies for populations of conservation concern are often devised by individual managers, based on their own intuition or experience. While this approach can be successful, it can also be wasteful or harmful if resources are invested in practices that turn out to be ineffective or detrimental to key species. Consequently, a more 'scientific' approach to management is often advocated. Ideally, scientists who understand the fundamental processes that determine the size, structure and location of populations, should apply their expertise to populations of conservation concern. The resulting rigorous understanding of population ecology should be communicated to conservation managers, and used to devise efficient and effective management strategies. However, such science-based conservation is relatively rarely implemented. This is because scientific ecologists and conservation managers often have different priorities and constraints, meaning that management questions and scientific answers do not link up. To remedy this situation, we need to form partnerships between scientists with relevant expertise, and managers responsible for devising and implementing conservation strategies. Here, we propose to initiate such a partnership, between ourselves as scientists studying fundamental processes underlying population change, and conservation biologists in SNH & RSPB. We will work together to devise a science-based conservation strategy for a protected bird: the red-billed chough in Scotland. Choughs are rare in Britain and Europe, and are of considerable cultural significance. They are consequently the focus of widespread conservation action. However, despite this effort, no consensus programme of effective chough conservation has emerged. We have previously studied choughs on Islay, Scotland, in the context of pure population ecology. We therefore have a good basic understanding of the demographic processes that cause the size of this population to change. For example, we know that chough survival, particularly in younger age-classes, is one key factor controlling population size. We know that chough survival and breeding success vary among different areas of Islay, and that this variation influences the population's overall size and structure. However, several key questions pertaining to chough population ecology and its links with management approaches remain unanswered. Specifically, we do not know when or where chough mortality peaks, what causes survival and breeding success to vary among months, years or different areas or how management might mitigate or exacerbate this variation. In this project, we will use fieldwork and existing data to answer key outstanding questions relating chough population ecology to management practice. We will work on three British chough populations, on Islay, Colonsay and the Isle of Man. Long-term data on population size, survival and reproduction exist for these populations, due to ongoing work by local chough study groups. We will then work closely with conservation managers and biologists from SNH & RSPB to use our knowledge to devise a scientific conservation strategy (a 'Natural Care Scheme') for choughs. This work will be of immediate conservation value in Scotland and elsewhere, and we will ensure that our approach and results are disseminated widely among ecologists and conservationists.