Letter to a wood girl tide

The pilgrim is not (yet) delivered by traveler pigeon. But I still try my luck, dear Turterelle des Bois, to inform you that after six years of hunting ban in order to preserve your species in decline, you can again be killed on French territory.

10,560 individuals exactly, it is the quota set by scientists of the European Commission for this hunting season. They estimated that your population, starting to rise thanks to this hunting sabbath, could in short move down now … France hastened to follow their opinion, unlike Portugal, which considered that it was necessary to leave you more time to fill you up.

It must be said that your species has drooled: its workforce fell 48 % between 1989 and 2015 and 44 % over the last ten years. Hunters are not wrong to say that this fall is first linked to agricultural intensification and the disappearance of hedges where you nest. But morally, it seems difficult to put you in sight when your species is still fragile.

Would it be a passionate act? It is true that you are beautiful to bite, with your oxel wings like a leopard skin, your eye hemmed in red, your end of half-collier black and white. So be careful to you! And avoid going through us.