19-3-2015 JURONG, SINGAPORE - EARED DOVE (Zenaida auriculata)

The eared dove (Zenaida auriculata) is a New World dove. It is a resident breeder throughout South America from Colombia to southern Argentina and Chile, and on the offshore islands from the Grenadines southwards. It may be a relatively recent colonist of Tobago and Trinidad. It appears to be partially migratory, its movements driven by food supplies.

It is a close relative of the North American mourning dove. With that species, the Socorro dove, and possibly the Galápagos dove, it forms a superspecies. The latter two are insular offshoots, the Socorro birds from ancestral mourning doves, and the Galápagos ones from more ancient stock.

Eared doves provide the last big-bag shooting experience in the world. More than 23 million of these doves are thought to be in the fields around Córdoba in northern Argentina, and recent estimates put the figure in the 32-million range. Not uncommonly, a single gun can shoot 1000 birds in a day.

The scale of this wing-shooting recalls the numbers of passenger pigeons taken by North American gunners in the 1800s. That hunting pressure brought the passenger pigeon to rapid extinction, but the eared dove seems to be more resilient. Indeed, as with the passenger pigeons, eared dove populations in Argentina and Bolivia sometimes "darken the skies". Thus, populations on the sporting estates of Argentina seem to be holding their own, with the birds breeding four times a year and thriving on the vast areas of grain, some grown for their benefit, most of it on commercial farms, which are happy to support the dove shooting. Dozens of luxury lodges specialize in dove hunting, and the season extends all year long.

The eared doves around Córdoba do not migrate, and the enormous flocks are described as flying constantly between their roosting woods and the open fields. In the Córdoba region in Argentina, the eared doves are known as palomas doradas because of the shining feathers sometimes present in their plumage.

Further north, in Bolivia, around de Gran Chaco region, near the immense soy and sorghum plantations around Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the dove shooting is more seasonal, going from May to September, with large flocks arriving from Argentina to raid the grain crops. Locals attest that eared doves, which they call by the Guaraní name of totaky, were quite rare in the region just a few decades ago, a testimony not only to the resilience of the species, but also to the huge impact that the newly created large feeding grounds have on dove populations.