Abundance of European turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur) in Apulia

The European turtle dove (Streptopelia turtur) is a migratory bird species that arrives in Apulia in Spring to nest. Its presence has a strong managerial interest as, despite being in an unfavorable state of conservation, it can be hunted in the month of September. Both on a continental and national level, Action Plans have recently been implemented to bring the species back to a satisfactory state of conservation, in balance with sustainable hunting management also through the conservation and increase of the national and international population in transit through Italy, to balance the impact of agricultural practices and hunting. The starting point of this action is the monitoring of the abundance of the species, also delegated to the individual regions. For Apulia, there is recent information on the distribution (Atlas of Breeding Birds in Italy) and trends (Farmland Bird Index - FBI) of breeding pairs, but not on their abundance. The sampling plan adopted for the FBI calculation was specially intensified to obtain a more homogeneous coverage of the sampling points and therefore to calculate the average density and to estimate the abundance of the breeding population at the regional level. The preliminary results collected in Apulia provide an estimate of the density of about 0.21 specimens every 10 listening stations and of a number of nesting specimens equal to about 1,600-1,685.