Neither legal huntability nor harvest-based hunting interest explain broad-scale variation in population decline probability at the European scale

Understanding the drivers of bird population decline is central to evidence-based conservation policy. While habitat loss and land-use intensification are established pressures, the role of hunting in explaining large-scale population trends remains poorly understood. This study examines whether species listed as huntable under Annex II of the EU Birds Directive are more or less likely to show breeding population declines in Europe (assessed at the national scale), compared to those under strict protection (those in Annex I) or without designation. Building on a public EU-wide bird dataset, we incorporated national hunting status, and a proxy of hunting interest based on national harvest levels, to test whether hunting-related indicators are associated with differences in decline probability after accounting for ecological and policy-related covariates. Hypotheses included that hunting interest could reflect investment in habitat (thus reducing probability of population decline) or that hunting mortality is generally additive (thus increasing probability of population decline). The analysis focuses on breeding populations in nine countries with robust trend data, excluding species that breed elsewhere and overwinter in these areas. Results confirmed that Annex I designation was associated with reduced decline probability and showed that neither national legal huntability nor harvest-based hunting interest showed a statistically detectable association with population decline. This should not be interpreted as evidence that hunting has no effect: local species-specific impacts—positive or negative—may occur but remain undetectable at this scale. However, our findings point to the lack of consistent large-scale associations between the hunting-related indicators considered here and bird population trends across Europe.