Conservationists Release Turtle Doves in England After 98% Decline in Mating Pairs Since the 1970s

Conservationists are working to prevent turtle doves from disappearing in England. This summer, experts are releasing hundreds bred in captivity in an effort to boost their population.

Turtle doves are a migratory species, nesting around the UK in the spring and migrating to Africa in the winter, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). However, the European turtle dove is considered vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and has been on the Red List for highest conservation priority in the UK since 1996.

According to the Turtle Dove Trust, the turtle dove population has declined by an estimated 94% since 1995. Threats include lost food sources, increased risk of disease, domestic cats and hunting and trapping. Further, mating pairs have declined by 98% since the 1970s, a major issue for birds that mate for life.

“Where I am in Somerset, no turtle doves have been seen in living memory. None of my neighbors ever remember seeing turtle doves there,” Ben Goldsmith, conservationist, financier and founder of Conservation Collective, told The Guardian. Goldsmith, with help from the Turtle Dove Trust, plans to release 200 turtle doves in Somerset. “Now, all of our oak trees seem to have a pair of turtle doves purring away. It makes me supremely happy. It’s as if this sound was designed to calm the human soul.”

The Turtle Dove Trust has also established a habitat for the birds on King Charles’ Sandringham Estate. The estate and Turtle Dove Trust have collaborated on multiple turtle dove releases in recent years as part of The Turtle Dove Captive Breeding to Release Project by Trevor and Deborah Lay, Sandringham Estate reported.

The breeding-to-release project bred more than 500 turtle doves in 2022 to 2023 and more than 800 birds in 2024, many of which will be prepared for release. More than 600 birds were released last year, according to Turtle Dove Trust.

As Trevor told The Guardian, this year’s migration could help determine the success of the breeding and release program. “This year we fixed trackers on 20 birds so that hopefully this autumn we will be able to see the birds flying, migrating. They are nesting locally too. They have spread out around the area and we have had a lot of sightings reported of our birds on our website,” he explained.

This program, alongside land improvements farmers have been making for wildlife, could help restore turtle dove populations and prevent their extinction in the UK.

“Farmers have been improving their land for turtle doves in the last decade, planting wildflowers and hedges. We are putting them back so everybody can see, hear and enjoy them again sooner and hopefully in their lifetimes and not in 50 or 100 years. We wanted to put something back,” Trevor told The Guardian.

“We have the advantage of doing it on a shoestring and getting on with it and not having to spend decades doing feasibility schemes like some larger nature organisations have to,” he added. “The environment is so much better than it was 10, 20 years ago because of what farmers have been doing to improve their land for wildlife and nature. So we are putting that nature back.”

However, some conservationists have emphasized that establishing more suitable habitats and reducing threats to turtle doves are more important actions for turtle dove conservation over captive breeding programs.

“We don’t currently see the release of captive-bred birds as a conservation priority for Turtle Dove recovery, so we’re keeping our focus firmly on ensuring that there is plenty of good quality breeding habitat available when they return from Africa,” Operation Turtle Dove said on its website. “Birds breeding in the UK are part of the larger Western European population of Turtle Doves and now that unsustainable hunting is unlikely to return, by far the most effective action we can undertake is to ensure that we provide them with places to feed, nest and drink so that the population can grow.”

Either way, experts agree that more actions are needed to prevent the turtle dove population from further decline.