European turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur).

In 1982, Joseph Sultana (founder of the Malta Ornithological Society, now BirdLife Malta), together with Charles Gauci, estimated that a maximum of 200,000 turtle doves are taken by hunting on the Maltese islands on an annual basis.

In 1988, on behalf of the then Association for Hunting and Conservation – Malta, now the Federation for Hunting and Conservation – Malta (FKNK), I made an analysis of the average number of hunted turtle doves during that spring.  On the basis of this survey, Natalino Fenech, who may very well be the only qualified ornithologist on the Maltese islands, concluded, that therefore, an average of 144,001 turtle doves are harvested in spring on the Maltese islands.

In 1992 in his infamous book Fatal flight, Fenech estimated that the maximum number of turtle doves that are killed in spring amounts to 376,000.

Refreshingly, one is happy to note that in his excellent 2010 book, Fenech did not repeat a number of the 1992 book’s misconceptions, and instead he gave a more realistic picture of the hunting and trapping situation, giving various reasons why some of the figures he had given in 1992 needed to be revised.

It therefore stands to reason, why the late Heribert Kalchreuter, who was commissioned as an independent expert by the Federation of Associations for Hunting and Conservation in the EU (FACE) and under the auspices of ICBP (today BirdLife International) and the Council of Europe, to carry out two fact-finding missions on Malta in order to examine the bird hunting situation and its ecological, social, psychological and legal aspects, was somewhat confused with the vast difference in harvested figures that were then made available by, supposedly, Malta’s top two ‘ornithologists’, Sultana and Fenech, and in his 1992 report one reads:

“The only available data on annual bags are the vague figures... based for the most part on ornithologists’ “guesstimates”... The lack of hard data does, indeed, make for much speculation - as conspicuously demonstrated by the size of the variation between   estimates by Sultana and Gauci (1982) and Fenech (1992)...: are 2,000 Shearwaters shot annually, or is it 10,000?  Annex 2 (by Sultana and Gauci) says 2,700-5,000 raptors are bagged each year, while Fenech estimates 64,000-96,000!  He further assumes that up to 100,000 cuckoos, Bee-eaters and Hoopoes are shot annually, as opposed to Sultana and Gauci’s 8,000.”

Thus, it was sensible for FKNK officials to state that the hunting/shooting of wild birds on Malta was definitely sustainable, since, the estimated harvested figures were constantly on the increase, year-in, year-out.  The more birds that were being killed each year must have been producing an even greater quantity of birds every following year for the Maltese hunters to shoot.

The data of harvested birds is best available through the hunters’ bag statistics since this can be physically evidenced

The ‘hard data’ sought by Kalchreuter in 1992 is today available by the official records and studies as shown in Table 1.

It must be explained that up to 2007 the spring hunting open season for the turtle dove consisted of 60 days, whereas since 2010 this was drastically reduced to a possible maximum of 21 days (however, 21 days were never opened), and in 2016 the open season consisted of a mere seven days.

Furthermore, also since 2010, several other restrictions and controls have been imposed gradually, such as national and individual bag limits. In 2016 a respective national bag limit of 5,000 birds, a daily individual bag limit of two birds and an individual seasonal bag limit of four birds were set.  Moreover, these individual bag limits had to be divided between two species, the turtle dove and/or the quail.

Every spring since 2011, the Maltese government commissioned an independent Company, Ecoserv Ltd., to carry out studies during each turtle dove spring hunting open season, which studies had the specific objectives:

To survey and scientifically monitor the daily influx of the turtle dove and the quail; and to estimate the overall presence (influx) of these two species per day and for the whole study period, subject to scientifically justified assumptions.

The studies’ results of observed (extrapolated figures) turtle doves are shown in the Table 2.

It should furthermore be noted, that, in each of these years, Ecoserv invited BirdLife Malta to form part of the observation teams, but it always refused toparticipate, while, encouraged by the FKNK, its hunter and trapper members have always formed part of the observation teams.  Moreover, Fenech cooperated as co-author on each of the final reports for spring 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, that is, except for the spring of 2016.

Fenech’s 2016 withdrawal coincides with the publication of a co-authored journal paper (Caruana-Galizia and Fenech, 2016), and notwithstanding the sound data of shot and observed turtle doves quoted in the tables, the paper comes up with unbelievable figures of harvested turtle doves in the Maltese islands.

The authors estimate that every spring, hunters in Malta could kill a maximum of 4.4 per cent of Europe’s turtle dove population.  The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates the maximum number of turtle doves in Europe at 11,900,000 birds, hence, according to Caruana-Galizia and Fenech this results in a maximum astounding figure of 523,600 turtle doves that Maltese hunters can take every spring.

Then again, in a book which Fenech has also just published, he, very cleverly, and thankfully, has gathered old-time hunters’ recollections of the large numbers of turtle doves that used to be taken in bygone days, when compared to the meagre numbers that are taken today (which numbers, the book title describes as having “melted”).

Illogical numbers of hunted turtle doves on the Maltese islands indeed.

According to Caruana-Galizia and Fenech, a maximum of 523,600 turtle doves could have been harvested this spring from the 22,349 turtle doves reported observed by Ecoserv Ltd.

During his fact-finding missions of 1992, Kalchreuter had calculated the shots to kill ratio at 6/8:1, which calculation was confirmed by BirdLife Malta representatives.  Therefore, according to the Caruana-Galizia and Fenech calculations, between 3,141,600 and 4,188,800 turtle doves must have migrated over the Maltese islands this spring, or 26.4 per cent to 35.2 per cent of the entire maximum turtle dove population in Europe.

In conclusion and nonetheless, I am sure that the EU Commission (which at present is commissioning the new EU Turtle Dove Management Plan) is not that gullible and am confident in its capabilities. In this respect, the ‘best available data’ will be seriously considered, which data of harvested birds is best available through the hunters’ bag statistics since this can be physically evidenced, if necessary, through the supply of any harvested birds on the spot.

No amount and quality of estimates, assumptions or guesstimates can ever stand up to the physical evidence.

Table 1

Spring bag records for turtle dove

Source: Wild Birds’ Regulation Unit (WBRU) 2016

Table 2

Observed turtle doves in spring hunting season

Source: Ecoserv Ltd. 2011 – 2016

Lino Farrugia is CEO of the hunters’ federation (FKNK).