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Published:
January 20, 2015 at 1:56pm
Sent in by R. Vella:
The number of turtledoves over Malta has decreased year after year.
In the 1970s in Malta you could still see thousands of turtledoves passing in one day and hunters and trappers had it good.
Today the number of turtledoves has gone down by 93 percent in the UK (where they were never shot) over 40 years.
In Europe the number is down by 60 percent.
In a few years even this referendum will be useless as the numbers will reach a level of no return.
In September 1914, the passenger pigeon, which was the commonest bird in the US, was shot and trapped to extinction. The turtledove might well meet the same fate.
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So much for the tradition.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150120/local/maltese-wanted-in-sicily-for-hunting-protected-bird.552688
What’s the excuse, that ultimately they’re EU citizens and not simply Maltese?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20150120/local/foreign-hunting-firms-target-malta.552661
‘These firms are very astute’. Good.
Conservation status: Least concern.
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/22690419/0
[Daphne – Yours is a comment which induces desperation at the thought of what the No campaign is up against. IT’S ON THE RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES.]
What Is the point that R Vella is trying to make?
Any species whose numbers are being rapidly depleted from whatever cause should not be exterminated more rapidly. It should be treated as an endangered species needing worldwide conservation and protection.
What a good point.
The obvious choice for me will be NO to spring hunting.
Birds migrating in their thousands to procreate should not be shot at. They should be protected.
And I the citizen have a right to enjoy those few weeks in April when the countryside is blooming with nature without endangering myself and family or seeing men and their dogs with guns running after poor birds.
https://www.facebook.com/VoteJonathanShaw
“Politics aside, I will vote NO to Spring Hunting as in principle & logic I’m against shooting a migrating bird which is on its way to breed.”
The most sensible comment made to date.
The the minimum viable population used by biologists and zoologists to denote the smallest size of a species that is a sufficiently large enough population of any kind in order for them to reproduce and perpetuate their species.
It’s not that simple. According to Birdlife international the turtle dove population in Europe is so large that its status is that of least concern, and does not even remotely come close to the next conservation level of vulnerable. While in the UK which does not allow shooting, the population decreases every year, but in France where millions are shot, the population is thriving and increasing.
[Daphne – Turtle doves are migratory. The ‘UK’ population might well be shot down elsewhere. In France, they are not shot in the spring. This debate and referendum are not about hunting. They are about hunting in spring.]
To go the way of the dodo.
Seriously, Dr Busuttil?
I’m sure you had similar stats in hand when you took your decision to support spring hunting.
So now you told us that you’d rather not break your promise to a few thousand voters and instead take us down this unsustainable route.
Your act is turning out to be more shameful by the day.
Forget the hunters; you’re losing your resonance with the electorate in general, Dr Busuttil.
Dr. Busuttil had every reason to declare that he has to vote in favour of spring hunting (though how he will actually vote is of course unknown), since he spent so much time and energy on defending that position.
Naturally consistency does not breed in Labour quarters, so you try to denigrate him.
I am sure that what really irks the PL is that Busuttil has not fallen into Muscat’s ‘trabokk’ (pun intended), which would have made this referendum another red or blue election.
Now, if Muscat is to be believed, he should not put any more spokes into the NO vote and let the people decide freely. On my part, and all my family, a big NOOOOOOO to spring hunting.
Absolute rubbish!!
There were never thousands of turtle doves in the 70’s that’s a lie any hunter or BL member will confirm.
As for turtle doves in the UK that’s another lie .They don’t go that far, except for the odd bird, on migration and so were never there in the first place ….it’s as simple as that.
For the record the turtle dove species is not endangered in Europe just google the facts from any independent source.
[Daphne – That there were literally ‘clouds’ of turtle doves is something I was told by people who used to hunt in the 1970s. ]
The IUCN list does indeed say it is LC, but the decline is well documented.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/nature_studies/nature-studies-the-disappearing-turtle-dove-8607728.html
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/09/decline-uk-countryside-birds
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/30/british-birds-at-risk-of-extinction-warblers-rspb
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29728558
I’m sure there must be some reason as to the discrepancy, Perhaps someone more knowledgeable will enlighten us.
Being told by someone what used to happen 40 years ago is hardly any scientific evidence. Point is, let’s stop hunting birds when they are breeding.
What is your point?
Is your way of dealing with this to drive a species to the point of extinction and THEN perhaps do something about it?
That’s a game you can play with your car and others of the same bent, not with wildlife.
And if you want to argue numbers, there’s no doubt in my mind that they were orders of magnitude more plentiful then than they are now.
Hardly ever did my father and brothers come home from their early morning run without a bagful – soups and stuffed turtle-dove or quail casserole were the order of the day back then.
Now they’ve all given up, some even before 2004, the reason being that nowadays more often than not a bird is downed by multiple shots, each from a different gun, followed by arguments about who shot what.
Stuffed turtle dove? Or turtle dove soup? You must have looked up pigeon recipes, because turtle doves are never cooked that way.
Birds downed by multiple shots followed by arguments as to who shot them?
I never read so much rubbish and lies in two lines.
Obvously you haven’t a clue what you are talking about.
Turtledoves in the UK were so abundant that they didn’t bother how many were killed on migration.
Today the smaller and smaller population is only raising 1.5 birds per breeding season, not enough to sustain the population.
The situation is so bad that Operation Turtledove has been launched in the UK.
France has now officially stated that the turtledove population there is down by 23 per cent.
World’s Rarest Birds (2013) has just said that the turtle dove might be on the threatened species list next, and Malta is one of the reasons.
ghalgolhajt.com is one living example why you can never reason with these people.
They have monopoly of the truth; everything everyone else says is lies and rubbish.
Truly għal ġol-ħajt. And if you think you’re taking the rest of us with you, we’re not done just yet.
The way I see it, the hunters are only harming themselves in the long run. If all these birds become extinct or their populations shrink because they are being shot in their mating season, eventually they are going to have nothing to aim at.
Then what are they going to shoot at?