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Moving from intentions to actions for collecting hunting bag statistics at the European scale: some methodological insights

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Abstract

For migratory birds, sustainable harvest management based on quantitative modelling needs cross-border hunting bag statistics. At the European scale, proper modelling requires both reliable and mutually compatible hunting bag data between regions and countries. Owing to the absence of harmonisation among the different hunting bag collecting schemes in Europe and the lack of methodological metadata, adaptive management at the flyway scale is currently extremely challenging for a number of species. For improving the current state of affairs, we expose statistical concepts, terminology and issues inherent to hunting bag data collection schemes; identify the multiplicity of error sources for being able to judge the quality of hunting bag statistics; call for a harmonisation process; discuss the origin of the hurdles in the production of standardised hunting bag statistics at the European scale; and suggest some potential avenues for future actions for overcoming them.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Franz Neumann (Austrian Federal Institute of Statistics), Girgina Nikolova (Bulgarian National Statistical Institute), Leena Forsman (Finnish Institute of Natural Resources), Algirdas Klimavicius (Lithuanian Department for Nature Protection and Forests), Wim Knol (Royal Dutch Hunting Association), Göran Bergqvist (Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management) and María Martínez-Jauregui (Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria - Centro de Investigación Forestal) for the information regarding the hunting bag collecting schemes in their respective countries. We are indebted to Anna Cohen Nabeiro and Guillaume Body (both at OFB) for the very useful exchanges about the ENETWILD programme. We also thank María Martínez-Jauregui for providing us the references about harmonisation in other ecological or environmental fields, Kévin Le Rest (OFB) for the information regarding the return rates for Eurasian woodcock mandatory reporting in France and the reviewers of this article for their interest and useful comments that contributed to enhancing the quality of our article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. OFB - Office Français de la Biodiversité - Direction Surveillance, Evaluation, Données - Unité Données et Appui Méthodologique, Saint Benoist, BP 20, 78612, Le Perray-en-Yvelines, France

    Philippe Aubry

  2. OFB - Office Français de la Biodiversité - Direction de la Recherche et de l’Appui Scientifique - Unité Avifaune Migratrice, La Tour du Valat, Le Sambuc, 13200, Arles, France

    Matthieu Guillemain

  3. Department of Bioscience, AEWA European Goose Management Platform Data Centre, Aarhus University, Kalø, Grenåvej 14, 8410, Rønde, Denmark

    Gitte Høj Jensen

  4. FIDC - Federazione Italiana della Caccia, Ufficio Avifauna Migratoria, Via Salaria 298/A, 00199, Rome, Italy

    Michele Sorrenti

  5. FACE – European Federation for Hunting and Conservation, 205 Rue Belliard, 1040, Brussels, Belgium

    David Scallan

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  1. Philippe Aubry
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Aubry, P., Guillemain, M., Jensen, G.H. et al. Moving from intentions to actions for collecting hunting bag statistics at the European scale: some methodological insights. Eur J Wildl Res 66, 70 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-020-01400-2

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