17/06/2019
Illegal
and unregulated hunting of Ortolan
Buntings has been found to be unsustainable by an extensive
pan-European study. Ortolan Bunting is a coveted French delicacy but,
despite the banning of the practice, continued trapping and killing is pushing
the species towards extirpation in the country.
Lead
researcher Frédéric Jiguet, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation
Sciences in Paris, was one of 30 people behind the study, which was undertaken
at the request of France’s Minister of Ecology. The team used
geolocators, stable hydrogen isotypes and population genetics to study the
bunting, discovering that a third of birds migrating through south-west France
come from the declining northern populations, concluding that French hunting is
partly responsible for their dwindling numbers.
Modelling
population dynamics through various possible scenarios showed that surviving
migration through France would markedly reduce the birds' extinction risk,
with the analysis confirming that current northern populations of Ortolan
Buntings are directly threatened with extinction. French hunters in the south
contest the hunting regulations – only formally applied in 1999, some 20 years
after the species was listed as protected on the European Commission’s Birds
Directive – claiming that what they catch is a small fragment of the bird’s
wider population.
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