Investigating the effects of hunting on the survival of British pigeons and doves by analysis of ringing recoveries

Abstract

Recent changes in British hunting legislation have protected the stock dove Columba oenas since 1 October 1982, and removed protection from the collared dove Streptopelia decaocto after 1 April 1977; the woodpigeon Columba palumbus has remained legal quarry throughout. Ringing recoveries offer a means of comparing annual survival rates before and after the change in legislation. Care is needed in the construction of the recovery matrices to remove inhomogeneities in the data and ensure that each 'year' runs from the day of legislative change. Annual survival rates were estimated by maximum likelihood using multinomial models conditioned on the recoveries; there was no evidence of age- or time-related variation in reporting rates. The annual survival rate of the stock dove was constant, at 54 +/- 3%. For both the collared dove and the woodpigeon, estimates of survival rates in the first year after ringing were not consistent between birds ringed as young and those ringed as adults, but nevertheless average...