Cyprus-Forum.com

[cyprusgeoff]

I thought the shooting of Turtle Doves was illegal this year.

Was that not an EU directive? Maybe I've got it wrong.

HUNTERS will this year be able to renew their licences online ahead of the hunting season which opens on August 17.

Interior Minister Neoklis Sylikiotis yesterday unveiled the new licence renewal process, in view of the new season, which will start next Sunday and continue until February 28.

“The hunting maps have already been published and almost everything is ready for the new hunting season to begin,” Sylikiotis said.

Within the framework of modernisation and for the better service of the public, the Interior Ministry decided to abolish the procedure followed until now for the publishing / renewal hunting licence such as the postal delivery and payment with a stamp in co-op credit institutions and apply a new procedure – the computerised licensing system.

Sylikiotis said that, “During the trial period (July 22 to August 3), 885 licences have been renewed through the internet.”

“This shows the simplicity of the new method. The new procedure for renewal of hunting licences enables 59,000 registered hunters to renew and print a hunting licence,” Sylikiotis added.

Hunters can renew their licences on the websites of the Interior Ministry, the Game Fund or JCC Payment Systems Ltd.



Open season
Game involved.
November-December (Wednesdays and Sundays only, 16-18 hunting days).
Hare, chukar partridge, black francolin, thrushes, woodpigeon, woodcock.
January-February (Wednesdays and Sundays only).
Thrushes, woodpigeon, woodcock, ducks and geese.
End of August (3-4 hunting days) only in the inland of the island.
Woodpigeon, turtle dove.
September (very limited areas in the coastal regions not exceeding 40 km2, daily, 10-12 hunting days).
Woodpigeon, turtle dove, quail.
Quotas: November-December season. 2 hares, 5 partridges per hunter per hunting day or 2 hares, 4 partridges and one francolin per hunter per hunting day.



How many will even bother getting a licence?

[connor]

What exactly do these macho men and their cannons hunt..?

I don't actually see Cyprus over endowed with wildlife.

[Nikitas]

There are 62 species of birds officially classified as legal quarry in the Birds directive of the EU 49/79, turtle doves are one of these species. So learn the facts before starting these threads.

In the UK, collared doves, protected in many countries, are regarded as vermin and can be shot any time, with no closed season or limitations as to bag, time, etc. What is the difference between collared doves and turtle doves that justifies the term "little" for the latter?

[Nikitas]

Are you bleeding hearts also bleeding over fish which are caught by the ton and allowed to suffocate in nets? If so can you link us to one of your antifishing posts? If not can you please leave us alone!

[Tim Drayton]

What exactly do these macho men and their cannons hunt..?

I don't actually see Cyprus over endowed with wildlife.

I think there is a programme for breeding game birds and releasing them into the wild during hunting seasons.

[Nikitas]

"I cannot see Cyprus over endowed with wildlife"

Cyprus, according to Birds in Europe has the highest density of chukar partridge in the world, with an estimated 400 000 breedi9ng pairs. Obviously you are not very observant of wildlife, or perhaps do not really care enough to go look at it. So stick to things you know.

[Oracle]

What about the poor Puffins ....

Decline at biggest UK puffin site

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Fewer puffins are going to breed at the UK's largest colony of the species, on the Isle of May, scientists report.

Numbers are down to about 41,000 breeding pairs this year from almost 70,000 pairs in 2003.

Researchers believe the decline is linked to changes in the North Sea food web, perhaps related to climate change.

Birds are also arriving underweight, which the RSPB describes as "worrying", because puffins are generally able to feed on a range of creatures in winter.

Losing count

The Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, is home to the UK's largest single puffin colony, although more birds overall nest in the St Kilda archipelago.

Mike Harris, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, has been monitoring and studying the Isle of May population since the 1970s, labelling individual birds with rings to follow their progress.

After decades of spectacular growth, he now believes the colony is in decline.

The five-yearly count of nesting pairs, which Professor Harris's team completed in April, revealed the decline.

"Also, we found some birds were coming back later than expected and others were coming in underweight," he told BBC News.

"And a lot that we knew were alive last year have not turned up at all, so we assume they're dead - although it's possible they knew it was a bad year for food and decided not to come back at all."

The numbers recorded would indicate a population fall of 40%, though because not every single nest can be counted the scientists believe it is more accurate to give a figure of "at least 30%".

Tangled web

Puffins spend the winters at sea, floating, swimming and diving for food, coming to land only during the nesting season.

In the winters they catch fish, squid, worms and other much smaller marine organisms, which means they are more flexible feeders than other seabirds.
Puffins are counted every five years by looking into holes where they nest

"So whatever the problem is, it's got to be a widespread one," said Professor Harris.

The suspicion is that climate change is altering the distribution of plankton across the North Sea.

This disrupts the entire food web, including predators such as puffin.

"This fits in with other evidence that North Sea birds have been desperately short of food over several seasons," said the RSPB's Grahame Madge.

"But these have been birds such as the Arctic tern and kittiwake which only feed in the top part of the sea.

"This is probably the best adapted seabird that the UK has; they're deep divers, they're specialists in going down deep into the water column to find fish, so it's troubling to find that they're encountering a shortage of food."

[CBBB]

The turtle doves are EU protected in the spirng (the mating season?).

[Oracle]

I am beginning to believe that Cyprus manages its wildlife fairly responsibly, with no threats of extinctions in any visiting birds ....

Birds of prey targeted in poisoning attempt

By Paul Eccleston. Telegraph.

More evidence of a deliberate attempt to poison birds of prey in the Derbyshire Peak District has been uncovered by the RSPB.

The body of a squirrel laced with poison has been found beneath the nest of a goshawk in the Upper Derwent Valley.

The RSPB had earlier revealed that peregrines and goshawks are now extinct as breeding species in the Peak District after the worst year on record for birds of prey persecution.

Ian West, the RSPB's head of investigations, said: "Although people have received jail sentences for persecuting goshawks in the Peak District we haven't seen anything like this before.

The RSPB and Derbyshire Police are appealing for any information in connection with this incident or wider bird of prey persecution in the Peak District.

"We have no proof about who was responsible but we know gamekeepers and estate managers have a strong interest in preserving game birds such as grouse, on the moors.

[pantheman]

Yeap, I renewed mine and my F-i-L over the internet. i was well impressed, it even prints out your photo. is was so easy to do just seconds and you are blasting away

Cyprus is moving into the 22nd centuary and leaving 4th world countries , like Turkey behind.

Roll on Cyprus, bring on the doves and the woodies