Is hunting nonintentionally selective? A test using game bird capture‐dead recoveries
Résumé
Selective hunting has various impacts that need to be considered for the conservation
and management of harvested populations. The consequences of selective harvest
have mostly been studied in trophy hunting and fishing, where selection of specific
phenotypes is intentional. Recent studies, however, show that selection can also
occur unintentionally. With at least 52 million birds harvested each year in Europe, it
is particularly relevant to evaluate the selectivity of hunting on this taxon. Here, we
considered 211,806 individuals belonging to 7 hunted bird species to study uninten-
tional selectivity in harvest. Using linear mixed models, we compared morphological
traits (mass, wing, and tarsus size) and body condition at the time of banding between
birds that were subsequently recovered from hunting during the same year as their
banding, and birds that were not recovered. We did not find any patterns showing
systematic differences between recovery categories, among our model species, for
the traits we studied. Moreover, when a difference existed between recovery catego-
ries, it was so small that its biological relevance can be challenged. Hunting of birds in
Europe therefore does not show any form of strong selectivity on the morphological
and physiological traits that we studied and should hence not lead to any change of
these traits either by plastic or by evolutionary response.
Domaines
Biodiversité et Ecologie
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