7.5. Fox control at Badbea and/or Longhaven cliffs

7.5.1.    Background

  1. During stakeholder consultation it was raised that foxes had started to make their way onto the boulder beach at Badbea Cliffs, and as a consequence the Shag colony failed. Guillemot and Razorbill nesting in this area were also affected. Foxes were also identified as a problem at Longhaven Cliffs. Locally, Foxes are believed to have increased following the ban on hunting, and it is likely that other mainland sites certainly within North and East Caithness SPAs and possibly in other mainland locations will be affected too general, Fox control is likely to result in the greatest benefit for Puffin and Razorbills as cliff-nesting birds would not be vulnerable.
  2. Further discussion with SWT in relation to foxes at Longhaven Cliffs indicated that although foxes are an issue, control would be difficult at this location and would require sustained stakeholder consultation with multiple landowners as only a small amount of land adjacent to the cliffs is owned by SWT.
  3. Due to the nature of the habitat, particularly at Longhaven, it may be difficult to eliminate foxes as it is inevitable that territories will be colonised by new animals. The possibility of a fox fence at Longhaven was discussed, but this was not considered feasible as it would significantly disrupt the aesthetic of the reserve for what is a questionable benefit.
  4. The issue of a fox/foxes at Badbea was more surprising as the site is difficult to access. The fox managed to descend the cliff and transverse a boulder field to access the nests. This was considered an unexpected achievement for a fox, and if the individual or group of animals involved were removed, other foxes would not necessarily repeat this behaviour. Guillemot, Razorbill, Shag and Herring Gull nest in the area suffering from fox predation.
  5. Lethal fox control is readily undertaken by experienced, licenced professionals. Control is typically required on an annual basis and monitoring is valuable to evaluate the effect. This becomes particularly meaningful when established over a long timescale.
  6. The scale of the benefit of such measures are difficult to judge but could run into hundreds of eggs, chicks and adults annually and if prevented could result in greater productivity. However, without any indication of the number of foxes that might be present, there is uncertainty relating to the current effect of predation. Since fox control is lethal, it was felt that this would not be viewed favourably, especially in view of negativity regarding less impactful methods of reducing predation such as DF.

8. Conclusion

  1. Two colony-based measures are proposed as compensatory measures for the Proposed Development and several others have been explored within this report as part of a thorough compensatory measure identification and selection process. It is proposed that the final measures to take forward are:
  • Rat eradication and biosecurity to benefit Kittiwake, Guillemot, Razorbill and Puffin nesting at Handa Island;
  • Safeguarding the Dunbar Kittiwake colony through wardening and targeted work to reduce human disturbance and other colony-related pressures;
    1. The strengths and weaknesses of all the measures are summarised in Table 8.1. In the case of the two Tier I measures proposed the strengths clearly outweighed the weaknesses.
    2. The strengths of removing rats from Handa exceeded the weaknesses. In this case the key strengths included large compensation benefits (see Table 8.2), and the provision of the required resource to maintain biosecurity at Handa in the long term, whilst the only weakness was the distance of Handa from the Firth of Forth. Although a search was conducted to find a closer compensation site (see Section 2.2), none were comparable in terms of compensation benefits.
    3. With regards to Dunbar, the main strengths included proximity to and connectedness with colonies within the Forth Islands SPA, and also the evidence regarding the role of human disturbance in restricting birds from key nesting areas. The key weakness identified was that it may not be possible to tackle all of the disturbance sources effectively. However, this would be a very poor reason not to undertake the work as there is much that can be readily achieved at Dunbar to improve habitat quality for the Kittiwakes (see Section 3).
    4. With regards to the Tier II measures, although both the incursion hub and diversionary feeding of Peregrine Falcon were of clear benefit, there were more significant weaknesses. With regards to the incursion hub, the impossibility of quantifying the benefits caused significant difficulties, whereas the need for a field trial meant that diversionary feeding was less attractive than other methods that could be implemented more rapidly.
    5. The Tier III measures were largely unpopular with stakeholders and on this basis were considered weak. Of the Tier III measures, removal of plastics proved impossible to quantify in terms of likely compensation benefits and was placed in Tier III in response to feedback from NatureScot who advised they would not considered it as a compensatory measure. Diversionary feeding of other avian predators (i.e. Great Black-backed Gull) and supplementary feeding of Kittiwake and/or Puffin were also unpopular with stakeholders (as well as being unproven) and similarly were placed in Tier III. Based on other feedback from stakeholders on measures that involved control of predators, it was anticipated that lethal control of foxes at Badbea would similarly be unpopular. Since compensatory measures need to have support, these weaknesses were viewed to outweigh any potential strengths.
    6. The compensation benefits for each of the Tier I measures which are proposed as compensatory measures, expressed as Conservation Targets, are summarised in Table 8.2. Although in reality compensation benefits would not be delivered annually in this manner, the numbers are presented in this metric in order to enable comparison with the modelled annual mortality from the wind farm. 
Table 8.1:
Colony-based compensatory measures and their prioritisation ranking.

Table 8.1: Colony-based compensatory measures and their prioritisation ranking.

Table 8.2:
Conservation targets for colony-based compensatory measures. Abbreviations: KI=Kittiwake, PU=Puffin, RA=Razorbill, GU=Guillemot,.

Table 8.2: Conservation targets for colony-based compensatory measures. Abbreviations: KI=Kittiwake, PU=Puffin, RA=Razorbill, GU=Guillemot,.

 

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