National Strategic Harvest Management Plan 2 Mourning Dove National Strategic Harvest Management Plan INTRODUCTION
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U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Mourning Dove National Strategic Harvest Management Plan 2 Mourning Dove National Strategic Harvest Management Plan INTRODUCTION This document provides a long- to make harvest management U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service range vision for improving mourning decisions; (2) population survey (FWS) notified the dove technical dove management through the results indicating declines; and, (3) committees in the CMU and the development of predictive harvest uncertainty regarding the cause of Eastern Management Unit (EMU) strategies. The purposes of this population declines. Some managers that if downward population trends plan are to: (1) promote the concept believe that hunting opportunity continued, harvest framework of coordinated management of should be commensurate with reductions would be implemented. mourning doves to insure uniformity population status while others Furthermore, they asked that of regulatory action and equitable believe that a restriction on hunting harvest management strategies be conservation across the species opportunity is unnecessary when developed that included decision range in the 3 Mourning Dove harvest is not known to be the criteria that explicitly state when Management Units; (2) acknowledge causative factor of a decline. regulatory changes will be made the need to recognize demographic and what the changes would be, differences among management The inability to correlate mourning and an estimate of the effect of units; and, (3) acknowledge that dove hunting regulations with their the regulatory options. In 1999, a the current harvest management impact on demographic parameters workshop was held in the CMU to system, and the knowledge base has not been considered a problem attempt to improve upon the harvest supporting it, needs improvement. heretofore because mourning doves management decision-making Future recommendations will be are widely distributed, abundant, process. In 2000, a Joint Flyway made regarding management and adaptable to a variety of recommendation was approved unit-specific harvest strategies habitats. Additionally, trends in to support establishing a working and initiation of new, long-term population indices in past years were group composed of representatives monitoring efforts. relatively stable and the estimated from the FWS and the flyway total harvest was declining. In councils, i.e., their technical Management has consisted of annual recent years, declines in the long- committees, to develop acceptable population trend surveys and the term population index have become guidelines for management unit establishment of annual hunting apparent in all 3 management plans, i.e., harvest management regulations. Additionally, some units. In the WMU, the decline was objectives and strategies. Similar states conducted either annual or generally considered the result of recommendations have been made periodic harvest surveys. These long-term habitat changes (Reeves by the Central Flyway Council and survey and harvest data, however, et al. 1993). However, it is difficult the Migratory Shore and Upland did not give managers the ability to to pinpoint exact causes of declines. Game Bird Working Group of the either correlate or predict the impact A combination of factors involving International Association of Fish and of regulation changes on harvest both reproduction and survival is Wildlife Agencies. or population levels. For example, likely responsible. Since mourning hunting opportunity was restricted doves are habitat generalists, it is In 2001, a National Mourning in the Western Management Unit difficult to target and develop habitat Dove Planning Committee was (WMU) beginning in 1987 due to management programs. Thus, the formed and met to begin the long-term dove population declines. future of dove management depends process of developing a plan of The dove population in the WMU primarily upon harvest management action that would lead to guidelines appears to have stabilized, but and our understanding of how the management unit technical it is unlikely that hunting was harvest affects dove populations. committees could use to prepare solely responsible for the decline Consequently, this plan deals with management plans for their that prompted these restrictions. harvest management rather than respective management units. Todd Unfortunately, available data were habitat issues. Sanders (CO) represented the insufficient to allow managers to WMU; Jay Roberson (TX) and John relate demographic parameters to Increasingly, there has been broad- H. Schulz (MO) represented the harvest or hunting regulations. scale support for improving the way CMU; Tommy Hines (FL) and David dove harvest is addressed. Harvest Scott (OH) represented the EMU; Managers have increasingly management plans have been David Otis represented USGS; and, become concerned about the status prepared in both the WMU and the David Dolton represented the FWS. of mourning dove populations Central Management Unit (CMU), Mike Rabe (AZ) joined the group in given their economic and social but neither plan provided a clear 2002 as a second representative from importance, and apparent population decision-making process regarding the WMU. declines. Management concerns hunting regulations. In 1998, the include: (1) limited data upon which Mourning Dove National Strategic Harvest Management Plan 3 The Planning Committee concluded that the current harvest management decision-making process could not be improved with existing information. Consequently, the group decided to prepare this simple vision document that would provide a long-range strategy for improving mourning dove harvest management. This Plan is expected to provide a common philosophy and framework that will result in (1) development of predictive harvest strategies that may be incorporated into unit-specific management plans, and (2) recommendations regarding initiation of new, long-term monitoring efforts. This Plan focuses on concepts rather than specific details, and represents an initial step towards improving the decision-making process in establishing mourning dove harvest regulations. The document outline consists of 4 questions: 1. Where are we currently with our mourning dove management? (Where are we?) 2. Where do we envision the future of mourning dove harvest management? (Where do we want to be?) 3. How will we get to this desired future condition? (How will we get there?) 4. How will we know if we met our goal? (Did we make it?) George Andrejko / Arizona Game & Fish Department 4 Mourning Dove National Strategic Harvest Management Plan Where Are We? Current State of Management “. Federal and State hunting regulations have been based upon the best information available . [but the] information on which to base management [decisions] has been far from complete. Although much was known about the dove’s life history, there has been [a] need for information on populations and production, migration, and local movements, on the influence of changing land use and weather, and on the effects of hunting” (Southeastern Association of Game and Fish Commissioners 1957:1). Since the time of this statement, a large body of research has been conducted on mourning doves (Baskett et al. 1993) and much has been learned (Tomlinson et al. 1994, Mirarchi and Baskett 1994). Despite the extensive and voluminous nature Jim Matthews of information gathered, the basic question of how harvest affects survival and reproductive rates remains unanswered. Many causative factors have con- tributed to our inability to address basic questions related to mourning dove harvest management. Mourn- ing doves are ubiquitous habitat generalists that use almost every major ecological habitat type (Al- drich and Duvall 1958). Mourning doves are also relatively numerous and visible compared to other avian species (Robbins et al. 1986, Tom- linson and Dolton 1987), and this relative abundance has minimized concerns about possible effects of over-harvest. Historically, few data existed to provide the rationale for Jim Rathert / Missouri Department of Conservation changing mourning dove hunting season frameworks; e.g., Mourn- ing Dove Call-count Survey (CCS) population trends, individual state harvest estimates [prior to full im- plementation of the Harvest Infor- mation Program (HIP)], and expert Mourning Dove National Strategic Harvest Management Plan 5 biological opinion. Thus, mourning size (Sauer et al. 1994). The CCS proximate issues dealing with CCS dove hunting season frameworks protocol is designed specifically and BBS issues, and instead focus have remained relatively stable for doves, but the number of routes upon ultimate issues of building (Table 1) and administrators and is generally much smaller than for reliable knowledge about relation- biologists have not changed those the BBS, which leads to concerns ships between changes in mourn- frameworks on an annual or regular about the ability of the CCS to ing dove harvest and population basis. detect trends. A reliable calibration demographics. Recent professional algorithm does not exist for con- debate has focused attention on the Population Status and Harvest verting either CCS or BBS indices inability of surveys like the CCS or Surveys to estimates of mourning dove BBS to actually have any meaning- Despite the fact that mourning abundance or density. Furthermore, ful value in making management doves are among the 10 most ubiq- CCS indices may not be correlated decisions (Anderson 2001, Ander- uitous and numerous bird species