UK Nature and Environment

Results are in for the 4th year of the Raptor Transect Survey Project, administered by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) for Scotland’s Regional Moorland Groups. Carried out from April to July each year, independent surveyors record the presence of raptors along 10km routes in different areas of moorland across Scotland. These moorland areas are predominantly comprising of managed heather habitat, but also incorporate some rewilding or forestry initiatives.

This year, a total of 15 transects have been monitored across four moorland areas in Southern Scotland, Tayside, Angus Glens and the Grampians, with surveys taking place once a month. The aim of this work is to build a simple index of conservation status over time for key raptor species, with the goal of enabling the GWCT’s biometrics team to detect long-term trends and raptor conservation status indices in these areas. The work has been strongly supported by Scotland’s Regional Moorland Groups and Scottish Land & Estates.