NICOSIA, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus and the European Commission may be on a collision course over the hunting of turtle dove, a migratory species which has suffered a dramatic population decline, a nature protection group said on Tuesday.
BirdLife Cyprus said in a statement that the Cypriot Game and Fauna Service has expressed opposition to a provision of the European Union Action Plan for the Turtle Dove approved by EU members, which provides for a temporary prohibition to hunt the bird.
Other EU countries opposed to the measure are Greece, Bulgaria and Italy, but France, Malta, Spain and Portugal, where the turtle dove is traditionally shot, concurred to the prohibition.
"BirdLife Cyprus finds the opposition of the Game and Fauna Service of Cyprus to the temporary prohibition of hunting to be a shortsighted approach, which risks the recovery of a threatened species," the statement said.
It added that despite objections to the temporary prohibition of hunting, the European Commission has emphasized that that the restriction of hunting is necessary across the EU, from 2018.
"The European Commission emphasized that the Member States that have opposed the temporary hunting prohibition cannot continue hunting as they do, and expects to be informed of the measures they will take for the effective reduction of the hunting pressure the Turtle Doves face, starting in 2018," the BirdLife statement said.
The comments of the Cypriot authorities are not available now.
Turtle dove is hunted in the pine-forested mountains of Cyprus in August.
The Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur) is a migratory species which is globally threatened, with its populations in Europe having declined by 79 percent from 1980 until 2014, according to BirdLife.
The reasons that led to its decline are habitat loss, illegal killing, hunting, as well as use of pesticides, draught and climate change, BirdLife pointed out.