Red-Legged Partridge monitoring and population trends

Abstract

Thanks to the Pan-European Common Birds Monitoring Scheme and Breeding Bird Survey, the temporal changes in abundance of the Red-legged Partridge are known in most countries of its area of distribution. However, these are based on abundance indices and no strong inference is possible about potential causes of local trends. Robust estimates of abundance or densities at national scale are still lacking. Information from hunting bags cannot be used owing to the inclusion of released Red-legged Partridges in those numbers. Even in the absence of released individuals in hunting bags, these estimates cannot be used owing to a lack of knowledge of variations in reporting behaviour in Europe and potential age-specific mortality.