23 hours ago
3
Turtle doves will be allowed to be shot for sport again across Europe, as the EU lifts a ban on hunting that was credited with the species’ tentative recovery.
The EU will allow hunters to shoot 132,000 birds across Spain, France and Italy after the threatened bird enjoyed a population boom in western Europe because of a hunting ban that came into effect in 2021.
The gentle pigeon species, which mate for life with their partners, is on the brink of extinction in the UK, where it is the fastest declining bird species. Globally the bird is classed as vulnerable to extinction because of hunting and habitat loss.
Every year it flies from sub-Saharan Africa across the continent of Europe to breed in the UK and other northern European countries in summer, and in some countries, such as Spain and Italy, people shoot them for sport during their migration.
But after a temporary ban three years ago on the annual shoot of the migratory birds as they pass through France, Spain and Portugal, there has been a remarkable 25% increase in the bird’s western European population, which includes the 2,000 individuals in England.
According to the BirdLife International charity, the data shows that bans on hunting are successful in boosting populations. In the western flyway of Spain, France, Portugal, and north-west Italy, the dove has started to recover. But in the central-eastern flyway of Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Malta, Romania and Cyprus, where hunting bans have not been properly enforced, no recovery has been observed.
Barbara Herrero, the senior nature conservation policy officer at BirdLife Europe, said: “The turtle dove did its part. Left alone, it started to recover. But governments failed to uphold their end of the deal. Instead of fixing weak enforcement and protecting habitats, they’re rushing to lift the ban. This is reckless and shortsighted. We know where this path leads – straight back to the brink. The European Commission should have stood firm and kept the moratorium.”
European hunters say efforts to bolster turtle dove numbers have paid off, and argue they have a strong cultural and economic attachment to hunting them.
Massimo Buconi, the president of the Italian Hunting Federation, said turtle doves have traditionally been used to open the Veneto hunting season, describing the celebrations as “an important day that is celebrated like the first day of the football season”.
“Of course, we eat the doves,” he added. “Hunting in Italy has always been closely linked to the kitchen.”
In Spain, where the “maximal harvest” of turtle doves under the new recommendations exceeds 100,000, the bird is classified as game because it can be hunted sustainably and serves a social, traditional, economic, culinary or cultural purpose, said Alejandro Martínez from the Royal Spanish Hunting Federation.
after newsletter promotion
“Hunting in Spain generates €6.5bn and 200,000 jobs,” he said. “This serves as a driving force for development in rural areas that subsist and prosper thanks to the use of species like the turtle dove.”
Minutes from the meeting held by the commission in which officials decided to allow hunting to take place show that EU leaders believe the conditions have been met to allow sustainable shooting of the doves.
They say the conditions to reopen hunting are a population increase of at least two years, an increase in survival, and the existence of credible regulatory, control and enforcement systems. They believe these conditions have been met and will therefore allow 1.5% of the turtle dove population to be killed.
The minutes read: “There was consensus (with the exception of Estonia and BirdLife) to reopen hunting with the 1.5% quota in the western flyway. Meanwhile, the reaction of the birds’ population to the hunting take will need to be closely monitored in the next years.”
