Turtle doves declined 98% in the UK between 1970 and 2015, with illegal hunting on migration routes and UK farmland change as primary drivers.
Individual turtle doves trapped on migration experience stress, injury, and death. The legal and protected status of the species in the UK is undermined by illegal killing en route. Breeding birds that cannot find adequate food must travel further for nutrition, increasing predation risk and reducing breeding success. The accumulation of threats creates a welfare crisis at the individual level alongside the conservation crisis.