The contested article
In the “Animals” section of the online edition of the Corriere della Sera A few days ago, an article by Luca Zanini was published on the anticipated bird migrations due to climate change. It included legitimate, but undoubtedly biased, considerations regarding the need to modify—as always, to "restrict"—the hunting seasons for certain species. The Federcaccia Research Office then sent the newspaper a series of considerations, which Corriere della Sera, demonstrating seriousness and balance, published today, thus allowing hunting to express and share a different perspective with readers.
Closing dates
"Federcaccia: 'Calendars should not be changed, the advancement of migrations is not scientifically proven,'" the newspaper headline reads, continuing: "The Italian Hunting Federation (FIDC) has rejected the request made by the League for the Protection of Birds (LIPU) to revise the closing dates of the hunting season based on data from a scientific study recently published in the journal "Wildlife Biology," coordinated by the University of Milan with the collaboration of LIPU and other organizations. According to this study, climate change has altered the migratory habits of many bird species, which appear to be starting earlier than in the past, leading many birds to begin their flight to Northern Europe during the height of the hunting season rather than after its end. This has led to a consequent increase in culling."
The letter
Federcaccia believes that there are elements that cannot be shared in the research assessments and in the summary reported in the Corriere, which expanded on the issue by also reporting on some studies conducted in Greece and based on "citizen science" activities, that is, observations that make use of the participation of citizen volunteers," the article continues, before reporting the content of the response prepared by our Research Office, which you can read below.
We have carefully reviewed the article published in the online edition of the "Corriere della Sera" containing assessments of the phenology of migratory birds in Greece and Italy. In the case of Italy, the article explicitly references a recent scientific article published in the journal "Wildife Biology," prepared by LIPU and the University of Milan, which focuses on 23 species of birds huntable in Italy. The article concludes with a request from LIPU to correct the hunting season closing dates in the hunting calendars of the Italian regions. We have analyzed the content and references of the article you published and the one in the journal "Wildlife Biology" to which you refer, and we believe it is appropriate to clarify several important aspects. The link to the WION Climate Tracker Report is a journalistic presentation with interviews describing the phenomenon of birds remaining in Great Britain during the winter and general assessments of global warming that could lead to earlier pre-nuptial migrations, but without reference to species.
The direction of flight of birds
The link to the gr website and the link within it to a study concern the migratory phenology studied using Citizen Science for several species of raptors and other soaring birds in Greece, without any reference to the anticipated start dates of migration. Specifically, both in the study and elsewhere on the website, it is made clear that Citizen Science cannot replace standardized scientific monitoring programs and that the results obtained with this method are insufficient to provide a national overview of the migratory phenology of the studied species. Regarding the data described for the island of Corfu, it is unclear how the authors were able to distinguish the flight direction of the birds that reached the cited area, considering that all the species cited winter in the Mediterranean basin; therefore, their presence may be due to winter migrations or delayed post-breeding migration. Indeed, climate warming has the primary consequence of delaying autumn migration, and consequently, delayed arrival (even in January) at the wintering sites.
The time frame
The Italian study, published in "Wildlife Biology," covers a time span from 2000 to 2023 and also compared its results with the Migration Atlas, whose dataset extends from 1930 to 2022. The study does not focus on evaluating variations in migration timing, but rather on understanding migratory phenology using citizen science data. Therefore, the data is collected by volunteers, whose reliability is not verified, and whose fieldwork is not standardized. Furthermore, the work is based on the a priori assumption that an increase or decrease in sightings in the cells into which Italy has been divided indicates the start of pre-nuptial migration. This assumption is not supported by experimental data and undermines the validity of the results obtained. Indeed, observations in the cells can increase or decrease due to multiple factors, including the frequency of volunteer outings, their experience, bird aggregation, local movements, and winter movements due to foraging or climate changes. This is therefore a significant weakness that makes the proposed results unreliable.
Key concepts
On a regulatory level, it is worth noting that the European Commission has prepared, as interpretative documents for the Birds Directive, the Key Concepts document and the Guide to EU Hunting Rules. The Key Concepts document, revised in 2021 and 2025 for Italy, demonstrates that Italian data are up to five decades earlier than those of neighboring countries or countries at similar latitudes. In the commentary to the Key Concepts document, the European Commission highlights these discrepancies for various species and explains them as possible confusion between winter movements and the actual start of migration. Indeed, in two cases (woodcock and northern pintail), the Commission effectively contradicts the Italian data, stating that migration throughout the Mediterranean begins in February, while the Italian data states January. Precisely to at least partially harmonize these discrepancies, the Italian government revised the Key Concepts data for four species in 2025, moving the start dates of pre-nuptial migration forward by a decade. To date, hunting season dates must be established according to the Key Concepts document and the Guide to EU Hunting Regulations, which together fully legitimize the January 31 hunting season closing date. For this reason, LIPU's requests cannot be accepted and constitute alarmist speculation that is of little use for the proper management and conservation of wild bird populations in Europe (Office for Wildlife and Agro-Environmental Studies and Research).
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