Passport to Texas

Mourning Dove

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Every September first, in the north and central zones, dove hunters are out in force.

06—In Texas, we harvest approximately five million mourning doves, and in excess of one million white winged dove every year.

Corey Mason, Wildlife Regional Director for Region Three, says dove season in the south zone starts later.

56—Because of some of the possible negative impacts to late nesting mourning dove, the season is delayed approximately three to four weeks, so we start in kind of that later part of September down there. And how long does it last? It’s a 70 day season statewide, with a 15 bird bag. And that’s 15 birds each time out, or 15 birds total for the season. It’s a 15 bird daily bag. The aggregate can be composed of 15 birds up to and including whatever combination of mourning and white wing dove, and only up to two of those can be white-tip dove. Which are really only found in the south Texas brush country and in the portion of a few counties in deep south Texas. So, hunters really need to know what they’re looking at before they shoot. They do, you know, and there’s also this new influence of Eurasian collar dove—or some folks call them ring-neck dove. They are not considered part of the daily bag limit. They can be shot year-round. The caveat to that being is if they are shot during dove season we strongly suggest hunters leave a wing, or some kind of identification mark on those birds, so if they’re checked by state or federal wardens they can differentiate between a collar dove and a white wing and mourning dove.

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For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.