Turtle doves in decline in Europe

I have read various comments, posted by hunters, quoting information published by BirdLife International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to try and justify why shooting of Turtle Doves in spring should continue to be practised, just as it has been for many years. They base their argument on the fact that these two organisations evaluate this species as of Least Concern.

I myself had a look at the site where this information is published, and what I feel that they are missing is that the status given is for the global population of the species, including North Africa and Central Asia. In the same site you can look up the status of this species in Europe and here the story is different, in fact the status is evaluated as Declining. Also a look at The Birds In The European Union - a status assessment, which can be downloaded from the internet, gives the status of the turtle dove in the EU states as unfavourable and the breeding population trend is showing a large decline.

We have to keep in mind that the turtle doves migrating over our islands are those that breed in Europe and that is the population that affects us. No matter how abundant this species can be in other parts of the world, Maltese hunters rely only on the European population to continue to practise what they refer to as their tradition. If Maltese hunters continue to ignore the facts or try to interpret them the way that suits them best, they will be jeopardising the future turtle dove hunting even in autumn. The turtle dove is in the Annex II list of the Birds Directive and its conservation status is given as unfavourable.

This is what the above report has to say when it comes to hunting species which fall in this criteria: Member states, Commission, hunters and conservationists will have to work together in all countries to reverse those negative trends otherwise hunting of these species will become unsustainable.