Published
2019-12-03
Section
Singing-ground Survey Evaluation
License
Copyright (c) 2019 David Gonçalves, Tiago M. Rodrigues, Paolo Pennacchini, Jean-Pierre Lepetit, Larry Taaffe, Marco Tuti, Bruno Meunier, Jean-Pierre Campana, Gianluigi Gregori, Alberto Pellegrini, Giuseppe Raho, Paul Duchein, Colin Trotman, Miguel Minondo, Dermot Fitzgerald, André Verde, Gerard Aurousseau, Felipe Díez, Kévin Le-Rest, Yves Ferrand
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Survey of Wintering Eurasian Woodcock in Western Europe
David Gonçalves
CIBIO-InBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto
Tiago M. Rodrigues
Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto
Paolo Pennacchini
Féderation des Associations Nationales des Bécassiers du Palearctique Occidental (FANBPO)
Jean-Pierre Lepetit
Club National des Bécassiers (CNB)
Larry Taaffe
The National Woodcock Association of Ireland (NWAOI)
Marco Tuti
Beccacciai d’Italia (BDI)
Bruno Meunier
Club National des Bécassiers (CNB)
Jean-Pierre Campana
Club National des Bécassiers (CNB)
Gianluigi Gregori
Club della Beccaccia (CDB)
Alberto Pellegrini
Club della Beccaccia (CDB)
Giuseppe Raho
Beccacciai d’Italia (BDI)
Paul Duchein
Association Suisse des Bécassiers (ASB)
Colin Trotman
Welsh Woodcock Club (WWC), Department of Adult Continuing Education (DACE)
Miguel Minondo
Club de Cazadores de Becada (CCB)
Dermot Fitzgerald
The National Woodcock Association of Ireland (NWAOI)
André Verde
Associação Nacional de Caçadores de Galinholas (ANCG)
Gerard Aurousseau
Club National des Bécassiers (CNB)
Felipe Díez
Club de Cazadores de Becada (CCB)
Kévin Le-Rest
Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage (ONCFS)
Yves Ferrand
Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage (ONCFS)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24926/AWS.0131
Abstract
The Eurasian woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) is a mostly migratory wader (Charadriiformes) that is broadly distributed across the Palearctic. This species winters in or migrates through all European countries and is an important quarry species in many of them. Sustainable management of the species requires information regarding abundance and demographic parameters to be collected regularly. This is a complex task given that different phases of its annual life cycle occur in different countries and, due to the species’ secretive behavior, Eurasian woodcock populations cannot be properly evaluated by common bird-census techniques. In Europe, woodcock hunters from different countries have joined in the Federation of Western Palearctic Woodcock Associations (FANBPO), collecting data on hunting activity that can be used to annually evaluate relative abundance and demographic parameters. To investigate variation in Eurasian woodcock relative abundance during and between hunting seasons, we fitted generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs) to data collected in France, Spain, and Portugal (Franco-Iberian region; 2006–2007 to 2015–2016) to analyze the variation in the number of different Eurasian woodcock seen per hunting trip. For these countries and for Switzerland, Italy, Ireland, and Wales, we also analyzed demographic parameters (the ratios of female:male and juvenile:adult) from bagged birds. In the Franco-Iberian region the relative abundance during the autumn-winter period increased from September to the beginning of December, and remained high thereafter with a slight decrease until the end of February; in the last 10 years, relative abundance has remained stable during autumn migration and winter. The sex ratio remained stable in the Swiss-Franco-Iberian and Swiss-Italian regions, but the former had a higher proportion of females. The age ratio varied among hunting seasons and regions. This research is an example of the effective use of data collected through citizen science that aims to maintain a favorable conservation status of the Eurasian woodcock while allowing a rational use of its populations via sustainable and controlled hunting.
