Turtle Dove hunting

We refer to various letters on the subject of shooting of turtle doves which have appeared in The Times written by David Borg Cardona and Brian Simmons.

Both defend the hunting of turtle doves on the grounds that the species is, inter alia, a pest species in Great Britain and is otherwise widespread in Europe, populations having increased by 600 per cent (!) over the past few years. This statement is far removed from the truth and, in our opinion, is a wicked attempt at disinformation designed to deceive a gullible and uninformed public. The real facts are as follows.

First, almost all European scientific monitoring programmes (for example in The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany) have established that the numbers of breeding pairs of turtle doves has steeply declined.

Second, the European Commission has listed the turtle dove (and indeed the common quail) as a species with an unfavourable conservation status.

In Germany both species are on the Red List of endangered species.

Against this background, the arguments that Mr Borg Cardona and others present that the hunting of this species is sustainable does not bear water from an ecological point of view. The generally-accepted definition of "sustainable use" is that only the harvesting of a healthy surplus of a population or populations can be considered acceptable from an ecological standpoint. This is demonstrably not the case with the turtle dove - throughout the whole of Europe.

Our organisation will do its utmost to ensure that the turtle dove - as well as the common quail - whose populations are equally at threat - are removed as huntable species from Appendix II of the EU Bird Protection Guidelines.

Hunting of these species in spring and autumn is no longer sustainable to any degree either on Malta, or in any other EU state where they can at present be hunted legally.