An eclectic species
In the last few days, a delegation of technicians from the Federcaccia Studies and Research Office, composed of Daniel Tramontana, Davide Senserini and Michele Merola, participated in a training meeting promoted by FACE which also involved France, Croatia and Portugal, with the aim of standardising some techniques of quail monitoring at European level, trying to fill the gaps in knowledge of the conservation status of this species, as eclectic as it is loved by European hunters. The activity took place in Spain, in the region of Castilla y Leon, where the Coturnix project has been underway since 2023, led by Mutuasport with the scientific support of the Artemisan Foundation and the collaboration of the Spanish Hunting Federation.
Fixed points
The Spanish technicians illustrated the monitoring methodology that consists of active monitoring, developed by the University of Barcelona, which overcomes the limitations of other passive techniques that lead to strong underestimations and that until now have guided decisions relating to the management of the species. The technique, carried out by specially trained technicians, is based on fixed points from which a count of quail singing males is carried out, stimulated by the emission of a call. The SEC method, as it is called in Spain, is completed with capture with nets "above grass" that allows estimating the ratio between young and adults and the percentage of singing males. From 2023 to today, the Spanish have activated 31 stations for SEC monitoring and in each station 10 fixed points are repeated on a weekly basis from the arrival of the quails until the cereal harvest.
Comparison and sharing
On this occasion, other management initiatives of the Spanish hunting world were also shown, such as the use of GPS transmitters and the collection of hunting data and quail wings, the collection of data on thrushes and the use of an application for monitoring Spanish fauna. A series of initiatives aimed at collecting robust data on which to base future management choices on huntable species at a European level. These comparison and sharing initiatives represent a strong point of the European hunting community, especially in the management of migratory birds but not only, which will need to be strengthened in the years to come. The Federcaccia Studies and Research Office, through this training course, intends to replicate the monitoring in Italy, which is added to the other study initiatives on quail undertaken this year, such as ringing during pre-nuptial migration and the strengthening of hunting diaries during the hunting season (Faunistic and Agro-Environmental Studies and Research Office Federcaccia).
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