The Scottish population became extinct, but has been reintroduced from the Swedish population; in Germany it is on the "Red list" as a species threatened by extinction and is no longer found in the lower mountainous areas of Bavaria; in the Bavarian Forest, the Black Forest and the Harz mountains numbers of surviving western capercaillie decline even under massive efforts to breed them in captivity and release them into the wild; in Switzerland, they are found in the Swiss Alps, in the Jura, in the Austrian and Italian Alps. The species is extinct in Belgium. In Ireland it was common until the 17th century, but died out in the 18th. In Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Romania populations are large, and it is a common bird to see in forested regions. The most serious threats to the species are habitat degradation, particularly conversion of diverse native forest into often single-species timber plantations, and to birds colliding with fences erected to keep deer out of young plantations. Increased numbers of small predators that prey on capercaillies (e.g., red fox) due to the loss of large predators who control smaller carnivores (e.g., gray wolf, brown bear) cause problems in some areas. This species has an estimated range of and a population of between 1.5 and 2 million individuals in Europe alone. There is some evidence of a population decline, but the overall species is not believed to approach the IUCN Red List threshold of a population decline of more than 30% in ten years or three generations. It is therefore evaluated as Least Concern. As reported by the Spanish researcher Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente in his "Fauna" series, the northwestern Spanish subspecies "T. u. cantabricus"—an Ice Age remnant—was threatened in the 1960s by commercial gathering of holly fruit-bearing branches for sale as Christmas ornaments—a practice imported from Anglo-Saxon or Germanic countries. In Scotland, the population has declined greatly since the 1960s because of deer fencing, predation and lack of suitable habitat (Caledonian Forest). The population plummeted from a high of 10,000 pairs in the 1960s to fewer than 1000 birds in 1999. It was even named as the bird most likely to become extinct in the UK by 2015. In mountainous skiing areas, poorly marked cables for ski-lifts have contributed to mortality. Their effects can be mitigated by proper coloring, sighting and height alterations.