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A major topic that is making waves in the hunting media is the question about EU recommendations to ban or restrict the hunting of migratory birds. This is not a new issue at the European or national level, but the methodology to assess the sustainability of hunting has become more sophisticated in recent years.

Before, if a species was declining, this was enough to put the continuation of hunting under question. Now, a combination of species’ biology to identify the most important drivers of population dynamics and a rapid assessment of harvest sustainability to detect potential over-harvest has been used. This provided a quick assessment of hunting sustainability, which now requires expert follow-up to check the findings. This process is important to see what actions are required under European law.

The new methodology showed that hunting is not a problem for most species (circa 70%), largely because hunting is already restricted to very low levels, making its impact negligible at the flyway level. For the species that were flagged as being in the red (potential over-harvest detected), most of them were duck species, but further analysis showed that most have increasing or stable wintering trends. Taking this science-based population-level approach to assessing the sustainability of bird hunting indicates that only a couple of species are of concern. More specifically, if we exclude those with increasing wintering trends, only the Common Pochard in part of its range (the North-East Europe/North-West Europe population) is experiencing a moderate decline at the flyway level. This species is already subject to legal restrictions under AEWA and is a candidate species for an international action plan.

On a positive note, this shows that the Bern Convention and the Birds Directive have been working well to regulate bird hunting in Europe. Hunting has been significantly regulated across Europe over the past decades.

The same European laws, however, are not effectively working for conserving the habitats of many breeding birds in Europe. While most flagged duck species have a secure EU wintering status with increasing trends, they nevertheless have unsecure EU breeding status due to poor breeding conditions in the EU. It’s also important to add that the EU is at the edge of the breeding range for many species, with only a part (often a small part) of their breeding population present in the EU (see Wigeon’s distribution map[1]). From a hunting perspective, most of the ducks which are hunted are from those breeding in Russia, migrating here during the winter.

Importantly, stopping hunting will not address the threats and pressures affecting these birds breeding in the EU. The required actions are typically wetland restoration and nest protection. If well-designed, some key European policies can make a difference in the coming years.

Take the Eurasian Wigeon, for example, a species with an increasing EU wintering trend and stable at the flyway level. The population mainly breeds in Russia (see map above), where it is deemed to be increasing. These birds are the primary source of Wigeon wintering in the EU. The Wigeon population wintering in the EU is now at a level of around 300% of the levels of the 1980s. This does not detract from the need for serious habitat restoration actions to support healthy breeding populations at the EU level. For example, some nice projects are in place in Finland, which has the largest share of the EU’s breeding population of Wigeon. Many of these projects are supported by hunters, such as SOTKA, because hunting is a key incentive to improve habitats.

The European Commission’s response has been to call for restrictions and moratoriums on hunting for some of these species. Some of these recommendations for migratory ducks are incomprehensible to hunters because they are over precautionary. This is sparking intense debate in the hunting media around Europe.

Relying on science-based flyway-level decision-making will guide decision-makers going forward. FACE will remain an active participant in this process.

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[1] BirdLife International (2024) Species factsheet: Eurasian Wigeon Mareca penelope. Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/species/factsheet/eurasian-wigeon-mareca-penelope on 16/12/2024.