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Wildlife management regulations for exploited species often aim to manipulate harvest levels in order to avoid unsustainable levels of exploitation. For such regulations to be effective the size of the harvest needs to respond to changes in those regulatory measures. The European turtle-dove is a widespread migratory quarry species of conservation concern for which recent levels of hunting in Western Europe are considered unsustainable. We describe temporal and spatial variation in the hunting of this species across Spain, the country with the largest harvest in Europe, after reducing biases inherent in the official Government statistics. We also assess whether changes in hunting policy regulations (the number of permitted hunting days, the start date of the hunting season and daily quotas imposed on hunters) have been effective in limiting the numbers of turtle doves harvested. Official national government harvest statistics under-estimated harvest reported by hunters by an average of 38% during 2007–2009 due to information gaps and underreporting, but this problem subsequently declined and was negligible by 2017. The density of shot birds was highest in the southwest of the country. None of the three regulatory measures had any detectable impact on reported provincial harvest, indicating that the main policy mechanisms employed by the Spanish hunting authorities to manage hunting have been ineffective. Our findings highlight the continued need of accurate measures of harvest and of developing and deploying effective means of managing the harvest of quarry species, especially those with unfavorable conservation status., This study is part of a project funded by Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB/Birdlife), UK (UCTR160232).

Since neonicotinoid insecticides were introduced to the agricultural market, evidence of the negative impacts of these systemic compounds on non-target species has accumulated. Birds are one of the largest groups of species to inhabit farmland, but the extent of neonicotinoid exposure in avian communities is poorly understood and very little is known about how any exposure may affect wild birds. Here, free-living gamebirds were used as a model group to measure the extent of avian exposure to the neonicotinoid clothianidin via seed treatment. During a typical sowing period of winter cereals treated with clothianidin, blood and liver samples were collected simultaneously from individual hunted gamebird carcasses, both pre- (n = 18) and post-sowing (n = 57) and were analysed for clothianidin via LC/MS-MS. Body weight, fat score and faecal parasite load were also quantified in the birds to ascertain whether any of these health parameters were associated with clothianidin exposure under field conditions. Clothianidin was detected in 6% of individuals sampled pre-sowing and 89% of individuals sampled post-sowing. The frequency of clothianidin detection in plasma samples and the concentration of clothianidin in liver and plasma samples decreased significantly between the first week and 2–4 weeks post-sowing. Faecal parasite load was positively associated with concentrations of clothianidin in the liver (but not plasma) of partridge species, but there was no association between clothianidin concentration and fat score or body weight, for either sample type. This study provides clear evidence that treated seed is a source of pesticide exposure for gamebirds following autumn sowing. These findings have implications for gamebirds worldwide where seed treatments are in use, and will aid the design of any future avian biomonitoring studies for agrochemical compounds.