Moving from intentions to actions for collecting hunting bag statistics at the European scale: some methodological insights

For migratory birds, sustainable harvest management based on quantitative modelling needs cross-border hunting bag statistics. At the European scale, proper modelling requires both reliable and mutually compatible hunting bag data between regions and countries. Owing to the absence of harmonisation among the different hunting bag collecting schemes in Europe and the lack of methodological metadata, adaptive management at the flyway scale is currently extremely challenging for a number of species. For improving the current state of affairs, we expose statistical concepts, terminology and issues inherent to hunting bag data collection schemes; identify the multiplicity of error sources for being able to judge the quality of hunting bag statistics; call for a harmonisation process; discuss the origin of the hurdles in the production of standardised hunting bag statistics at the European scale; and suggest some potential avenues for future actions for overcoming them.

[1]  V. L. Wright.  CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF BIASES ON WATERFOWL HARVEST ESTIMATES , 1978 .

[2]  E. Dillman.  TECHNIQUES FOR ESTIMATING NON-STATISTICAL BIAS IN BIG GAME HARVEST SURVEYS' , 1968 .

[3]  G. Péron.  Compensation and additivity of anthropogenic mortality: life-history effects and review of methods. , 2013, The Journal of animal ecology.

[4]  M. Ruzic,et al.  Preliminary assessment of the scope and scale of illegal killing and taking of birds in the Mediterranean , 2016 .

[5]  F. Filion,et al.  Human surveys in wildlife management. , 1980 .

[6]  Jürgen H. P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik,et al.  Methodological aspects in cross-national research , 2005 .

[7]  Philippe Aubry,et al.  Increasing the trust in hunting bag statistics: why random selection of hunters is so important , 2020 .

[8]  F. Johnson,et al.  Making do with less: must sparse data preclude informed harvest strategies for European waterbirds? , 2018, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[9]  A. Herruzo,et al.  Understanding long-term hunting statistics: the case of Spain (1972-2007) , 2011 .

[10]  Robert M. Groves,et al.  Survey Errors and Survey Costs: Groves/Survey Errors , 2005 .

[11]  Anna Cohen Nabeiro,et al.  Analysis of hunting statistics collection frameworks for wild boar across Europe and proposals for improving the harmonisation of data collection , 2018, EFSA Supporting Publications.

[12]  A. W. Kemp,et al.  Univariate Discrete Distributions , 1993 .

[13]  L. Gideon.  Handbook of Survey Methodology for the Social Sciences , 2012 .

[14]  J. G. Bethlehem.  Cross-sectional Research , 1999 .

[15]  J. Sedinger,et al.  Harvest and dynamics of duck populations , 2012 .

[16]  Jelke Bethlehem,et al.  Applied Survey Methods: A Statistical Perspective , 2009 .

[17]  Jelke Bethlehem,et al.  Applied Survey Methods , 2009 .

[18]  F. Johnson,et al.  MANAGING NORTH AMERICAN WATERFOWL IN THE FACE OF UNCERTAINTY , 1995 .

[19]  Vic Barnett,et al.  Sample Survey Principles and Methods , 1991 .

[20]  H. Heldbjerg,et al.  Functional Responses of Human Hunters to Their Prey — Why Harvest Statistics may not Always Reflect Changes in Prey Population Abundance , 2015 .

[21]  A. W. Kemp,et al.  Univariate Discrete Distributions: Johnson/Univariate Discrete Distributions , 2005 .

[22]  Iris Meyer,et al.  Harmonising socio-demographic information in household surveys of official statistics: experiences from the Federal Statistical Office Germany , 2005 .

[23]  A. R. Sen.  Some Nonsampling Errors in the Canadian Waterfowl Mail Survey , 1972 .

[24]  Craig A. Miller,et al.  COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN HUNTERS' RECALL OF PARTICIPATION AND HARVEST ESTIMATES , 2005 .

[25]  Anders Wallgren,et al.  Using Administrative Registers for Agricultural Statistics , 2010 .

[26]  J. Michael Brick,et al.  Nonresponse and Weighting , 2009 .

[27]  I. Stoop,et al.  Classification of Surveys , 2012 .

[28]  Craig A. Miller,et al.  Hunting Activity Record-Cards and the Accuracy of Survey Estimates , 2005 .

[29]  A. D. Fox,et al.  Sustainable management of migratory European ducks: finding model species , 2018, Wildlife Biology.

[30]  David D. Dolton,et al.  Harvest Information Program:Evaluation and Recommendations , 2002 .

[31]  P. Alves,et al.  The usefulness of field data and hunting statistics in the assessment of wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) conservation status in Portugal , 2010 .

[32]  Other.  Terminology on statistical metadata , 2000 .

[33]  M. Guillemain,et al.  Duck hunting bag estimates for the 2013/14 season in France , 2016 .

[34]  J. Andrew Royle,et al.  Distribution, Abundance, and Species Richness in Ecology , 2015 .

[35]  Alan Agresti,et al.  Statistics: The Art and Science of Learning from Data , 2005 .

[36]  Michael J. Conroy,et al.  Decision Making in Natural Resource Management: A Structured, Adaptive Approach , 2013 .

[37]  Paul P. Biemer,et al.  Introduction to Survey Quality , 2003 .

[38]  N. Aebischer.  Fifty-year trends in UK hunting bags of birds and mammals, and calibrated estimation of national bag size, using GWCT’s National Gamebag Census , 2019, European Journal of Wildlife Research.

[39]  J. Madsen,et al.  AEWA international single species management plan for the greylag goose (anser anser): Northwest/Southwest European population , 2018 .

[40]  P. Dixon.  Review of "Design and analysis of long-term ecological monitoring studies" , 2013 .

[41]  Jürgen H. P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik,et al.  Advances in cross-national comparison : a European working book for demographic and socio-economic variables , 2003 .

[42]  Philippe Aubry,et al.  Attenuating the nonresponse bias in hunting bag surveys: The multiphase sampling strategy , 2019, PloS one.

[43]  E. Leeuw,et al.  To mix or not to mix data collection modes in surveys. , 2005 .

[44]  J. Andrew Royle,et al.  Applied Hierarchical Modeling in Ecology: Analysis of Distribution, Abundance and Species Richness in R and BUGS , 2015 .

[45]  H. Weisberg.  The Total Survey Error Approach: A Guide to the New Science of Survey Research , 2005 .

[46]  J. Madsen,et al.  Assessing hunters’ ability to identify shot geese: implications for hunting bag accuracy , 2017, European Journal of Wildlife Research.

[47]  Manfred Ehling.  Harmonising Data in Official Statistics , 2003 .

[48]  Jerry J. Vaske,et al.  Lessons Learned in Detecting and Correcting Response Heaping: Conceptual, Methodological, and Empirical Observations , 2006 .

[49]  Howard B. Stauffer,et al.  Contemporary Bayesian and Frequentist Statistical Research Methods for Natural Resource Scientists , 2007 .

[50]  J. Madsen,et al.  Impact of hunting along the migration corridor of pink‐footed geese Anser brachyrhynchus – implications for sustainable harvest management , 2017 .

[51]  Kosuke Imai,et al.  Survey Sampling , 1998, Nov/Dec 2017.

[52]  P. Clausen,et al.  The scientific basis for new and sustainable management of migratory European ducks , 2006 .

[53]  W. Overton,et al.  Methods of estimating dove kill , 1960 .

[54]  A. R. Sen.  Response Errors in Canadian Waterfowl Surveys , 1973 .

[55]  Eric R. Ziegel,et al.  Survey Errors and Survey Costs , 1990 .

[56]  Anders Wallgren,et al.  Register-Based Statistics: Statistical Methods for Administrative Data , 2014 .

[57]  Sándor Csányi,et al.  National Game Management Database of Hungary , 2010, Int. J. Inf. Syst. Soc. Chang..

[58]  Benoît Riandey.  Tillé Y. — Théorie des sondages. Échantillonnage et estimation en populations finies.Cours et exercices avec solution , 2001 .

[59]  E. L. Atwood.  Validity of mail survey data on bagged waterfowl , 1956 .

[60]  A. R. Sen.  Some Recent Developments in Waterfowl Sample Survey Techniques , 1971 .

[61]  R. Groves.  Nonresponse Rates and Nonresponse Bias in Household Surveys , 2006 .

[62]  Howard B. Stauffer,et al.  APPLICATION OF BAYESIAN STATISTICAL INFERENCE AND DECISION THEORY TO A FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM IN NATURAL RESOURCE SCIENCE: THE ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT OF AN ENDANGERED SPECIES , 2008 .