Applying PECBMS data in conservation: the Turtle Dove population decline, adaptive management, and recovery

The European Turtle-dove (Streptopelia turtur) has become a priority for conservation action, following decades of population decline.The 2018 Species Action Plan, agreed internationally, recommended regulating hunting through an adaptive harvest management mechanism (AHMM), an evidence-led system designed to facilitate decision making through continuous learning. The Turtle Dove AHMM was set up in 2020 overseen by the European Commission. In our role as scientific advisors to the AHMM, we used the PECBMS dataset to calculate flyway-specific estimates of key parameters that contribute to decision making: indices, trends and breeding population size variation over time, covering the periods 1998 – 2024 and 2000 – 2024. The persistent decline in both flyways, coupled with results from a population model based on demographic variables from the western flyway, supported the recommendation of a complete hunting ban from 2021 (western) and a 50% reduction (2021) followed by zero take from 2022 (central-eastern). PECBMS data allowed tracking the population response to such policy decisions. In the western flyway, numbers reached a historic low of 1.56 · 106 breeding pairs in 2021, then increased by 31.5% in the following three years, to 2.00 · 106 breeding pairs in 2024, i.e., 480 000 new breeding pairs. During this time, mean annual adult survival increased significantly, and is the most likely driver of the observed growth. In the central-eastern flyway, hunting effort was reduced but not eliminated, and the population maintained its overall decline. Numbers dropped to an all-time low of 0.56 · 106 breeding pairs in 2023, then increased non-significantly in 2024. Our study demonstrates the value of using the PECBMS dataset in conservation for the management of priority species. It further provides empirical evidence of the speed of population response in this quarry species, and the timeframe needed for change to occur and to be detected.