Investigation into the illegal killing of a tagged Eurasian Curlew

Abstract

On 9 August 2020, one of 10 tagged Eurasian curlews we tracked with GPS died on Ile Madame, France, and we managed to collect the corpse for further analyses. Our investigation proved that the bird was shot, as x-ray imagery revealed a single lead ball under the bill skin, while the bill had been recently broken. The study of the GPS tracks during the last days and hours of the bird’s life indicated a normal foraging activity during the previous night. The bird moved to the high tide roosting bank of Ile Madame during the night, and was shot to death at sunrise. Directed intentionally or not towards the curlew, the shot was the cause of the death. The Eurasian Curlew is endangered to extinction, and as such is not huntable anymore across Europe. With an adult survival estimated at 92 %, any additional adult mortality can have a noticeable impact on population dynamics, hence on extinction risk. For the sample of 10 adult curlews we tagged, this single additional mortality by illegal shooting theoretically doubles the annual mortality rate. The tagged individual belonged to the small threatened Belgian breeding population estimated to count 170–230 breeding pairs.