Conservationists voice concern over new hunting season

Nature associations and bird watchers have criticized the Central Hunting Commission's decision that some 29 bird species will be on the list of hunters in the new hunting season, which will start on Aug. 20.

Refuting the claims that hunting is done to balance the populations, Gökçe Coşkun, a bird watcher in the southern province of Antalya, said, "These are put forward in order to base the hunting on a scientific basis but there is very little data on the populations of the species that exist in the wildlife."

It is completely out of date to take a gun and try to kill wild animals without any work as it is necessary to monitor the species in a region for years, to reveal the threats, to eliminate them and to provide interspecies relations, according to Coşkun.

Even animals that are in the "vulnerable" category on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "red list of threatened species," such as pochard and turtle dove, are allowed to be hunted, Coşkun added. "Magpie, crocus and even coyote are on this list. There is no study showing the overpopulation of these species across the country or describing their damage."

"If we don't correct these mistakes, we will gradually lose our country's wildlife. We need to recognize them not as game, but as living creatures like us," she added.

She also criticized that a picture of Anatolian leopard, which was displayed in the camera traps launched when it was thought to be extinct in the country, was used on the documents prepared by the Nature Conservation and National Parks (DKMP) for hunters.

Cem Altıparmak, the lawyer of a nature association, reiterated the lawsuit they filed at the Council of State for the annulment of a similar decision given during the last year's...