Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many black grouse there were in the UK in each of the last five years.

Surveys for black grouse are generally carried out at country level, but vary in frequency and sampling methods. It is therefore not possible to provide estimates at the UK level for the last five years.

The last comprehensive survey of the black grouse population was undertaken in 2005, which estimated there were approximately 5100 breeding pairs in Great Britain.

In 2016 a formal estimate of the black grouse population in Great Britain was produced by several UK conservation bodies drawing on the data produced by country level surveys and using the International Union for Conservation of Nature methodology. The 2016 population of black grouse was estimated to be 5775 males (or breeding pairs).