For goose hunters, Courville pointed out his original proposal for the Commission was for an 88-day season with a two-bird bag limit. He was asked by another commissioner if he was OK with reducing the season to 81 days, and he agreed.
The variability of the number of white-fronted geese (specklebellies) that arrive in Louisiana from year to year is cause for concern, he said.
“For Canadas and specks, I don’t think we have a very good handle on what’s going on with those two birds in this state. We need to spend a lot more time talking about them, and finding out what’s going on with them,” he said. “Do we have a legitimate pressure problem, or is just one year they’re here and one year they’re not?
“Is our habitat becoming more or less friendly to geese? I haven’t seen the habitat analysis of that area as far as what percentage of it has been converted out of rice, or has gone idle, but that’s the kind of stuff we need to find out to know if the number that we’re counting is a real number. And frankly, that matters more to me than what everybody thinks we should be doing.”
Regardless of season length, one question Courville wants to know the answer to is how long the specklebelly population remains in Louisiana.
“And as I appreciate it, nobody could answer that question,” Courville said. “But we need to know the answer because, what good is it to have extra days if you don’t have specks in the state?
“The whole point of my mindset, and what I believe my role on the Commission is, is we’ve got some fundamental questions that we need to ask. And if we don’t have the data, we probably need to spend some time and allocate some resources and go find out what that is.”
soooooooooooo if this guys has so many questions and we dont know squat about the wintering of specklebelly geese in our area, then why would they go from 74 days to 81? am i just stupid, or does this make sense?
|