The health of the Woodcock.

    Yves Ferrand of the Bécasse Oncfs network has been giving us the same diagnosis for years on the condition of the herd.

       The Woodcock is in good health, the numbers are stable.

       However, the species remains fragile due to its low rate of life expectancy and its sensitivity to cold.

       The two sentences of this statement are contradictory  :

  If the Woodcock is in good health with stable numbers  ; all is said  !

  But as he adds, the species is fragile because of its low life expectancy, everything is called into question  !

    Indeed, if after having made us pass, tests, analyzes, X-rays our doctor told us  :

"  You are in good health, all your parameters are stable  ; but you are extremely fragile and above all your life expectancy is low, due to your high sensitivity to infections  ".

    We would be reassured  ? No we would be worried  !

    So, let's be worried about Woodcock.

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    But as we prefer to believe what we want to believe, the hunting world as a whole (Federations, Bécassiers Clubs, Hunting Reviews) and most hunters have retained  : The Woodcock is in good health with stable numbers. Especially since Y. Ferrand adds  ;  The PMA 30 / season is enough to protect it. Not surprisingly, for far too many hunters the goal is to fill in the logbook and refuse new regulations to protect the species.

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    These positions are far from unanimous among more and more Bécassiers, who long before we talk about climate change and warming (suddenly guilty of many ills), have observed in the field, from North to South, from West to East, a downward trend in numbers which has accelerated over the last decade.

    This decrease is more accentuated in the South of the Loire, but the North, despite the principle of communicating vessels, does not benefit from it. We see there a relative stability or a beginning of regression. Worrying  !

  We cannot estimate the number of individuals in the European herd. Organizations (most often scientific) which have tried to do so announce such disparate figures that it is better to forget them. We are therefore obliged to deal with the clues, indicators, observations, field expertise, the feelings of all those who do serious research on the species.   

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   The following two tables should give us pause ...

Evolution of the estimate of French deductions in thirty years.