Turtle dove hunting ban boosts western European population by 40%

Numbers of threatened turtle doves in western Europe have rapidly recovered after a hunting ban was introduced in 2021, conservationists said.

Numbers in the region increased by 40% to 610,000 breeding pairs from 2021 to 2024, according to Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Data Scheme figures released on Friday.

The rising numbers provide hope for the future of the birds, currently on the red list of threatened species in the UK.

The birds migrate from Africa each year to breed in European countries including the UK.

While famously featuring in Christmas carol The 12 Days Of Christmas, turtle doves are actually only found in the UK over the summer months.

France, Spain and Portugal paused hunting of the species in 2021 to allow their recovery.

Prior to 2018 an “unsustainable” one million turtle doves were being hunted each autumn in those three countries alone, the RSPB said.

But the species also needs good breeding season habitats – a key issue for the UK where changes to the way land was farmed in the 20th century deprived them of much of their seed food.

As part of Operation Turtle Dove, UK conservation groups are working with farmers and landowners to provide key habitats including seed-rich flowering areas, ponds, patches of thorny scrub and tall, wide hedgerows to support the birds.

It comes as an international team of scientists, including from the RSPB, have been advising governments on how to manage their populations of turtle doves sustainably, and whose advice led to the temporary hunting ban.

The moratorium is the first stage of a hunting management system, developed to ensure that any future hunting is carried out at sustainable levels that allow the population to continue to recover in the long term.

On the new figures, Rick Bayne, senior project manager for Operation Turtle Dove, said: “This excellent news from the wider western European breeding population is compelling evidence that our conservation strategy for turtle doves is working, making the work of Operation Turtle Dove to deliver good breeding habitat for these birds all the more important here in the UK.”

But Dr Guy Anderson, the RSPB’s Migratory Birds Programme manager, said: “This good news for the whole western European breeding population of turtle doves does not diminish the need to ensure that unsustainable levels of hunting do not return, but it can and should strengthen our resolve to ensure that more of the UK’s countryside is ‘turtle dove ready’.

“We know that nature recovery, for turtle doves and other much-loved farmland wildlife, will not be possible without farmers and other land managers, and the efforts of those involved in Operation Turtle Dove so far have been amazing in installing the necessary habitat features to aid their breeding success when they reach our shores again this spring.”

Operation Turtle Dove is a partnership between the RSPB, Natural England, Pensthorpe Conservation Trust and Fair To Nature.