Louisiana waterfowl season dates 2014

[grizzon30s]

Originally Posted by Lreynolds

As per the press release, please send an e-mail or make a phone call with your comments. I won't be collecting any comments from forums, facebook, or other websites.

Thanks,

Larry Reynolds

Mr Reynolds, as always, thank you so much for participating in these public forums. I think we are lucky to have such easy access to you.
My question is, what benefit is there to setting the season dates earlier? I understand you have work within the federal framework and there is a 6 week lag time at best. Setting it early based on previous season data seems a little pointless. We all know that so much changes one season to the next. Maybe I'm missing something.

[Lreynolds]

Originally Posted by grizzon30s

My question is, what benefit is there to setting the season dates earlier? I understand you have work within the federal framework and there is a 6 week lag time at best. Setting it early based on previous season data seems a little pointless. We all know that so much changes one season to the next. Maybe I'm missing something.

I don't believe there is much benefit, except as you mentioned in another post, it gives some hunters more lead time to plan vacations from work. I get a number of calls every year from guys that have to schedule their vacations early in the year. Also, it would streamline the process if we could use the same Notice-of-Intent, public meeting, and public comment period process and time-line for ducks/geese that we use for resident game.

However, there probably isn't much of a cost either because 1) populations don't change so much in 1 year that it affects regulations, and 2) the effects of hunting regulations on populations is so minimal that one year of too liberal or too conservative won't make any difference. Note the long periods of regulatory stability, both liberal and restrictive. We already use 3-year averages for our goose harvest strategies, and current-year population information for say speckle-belly geese (late-September survey in SK) comes after we have set the season.

The pressure to set the seasons earlier is coming from the USFWS legal staff who are constantly worried about lawsuits from anti-hunting factions. I'm not a legal expert, but evidently the comment period for federal waterfowl hunting regulations is so short as to be indefensible as a functional mechanism for comments to be collected, summarized, and responded to.

The issue isn't biological; it's administrative.

[grizzon30s]

Originally Posted by Lreynolds

I don't believe there is much benefit, except as you mentioned in another post, it gives some hunters more lead time to plan vacations from work. I get a number of calls every year from guys that have to schedule their vacations early in the year. Also, it would streamline the process if we could use the same Notice-of-Intent, public meeting, and public comment period process and time-line for ducks/geese that we use for resident game.

However, there probably isn't much of a cost either because 1) populations don't change so much in 1 year that it affects regulations, and 2) the effects of hunting regulations on populations is so minimal that one year of too liberal or too conservative won't make any difference. Note the long periods of regulatory stability, both liberal and restrictive. We already use 3-year averages for our goose harvest strategies, and current-year population information for say speckle-belly geese (late-September survey in SK) comes after we have set the season.

The pressure to set the seasons earlier is coming from the USFWS legal staff who are constantly worried about lawsuits from anti-hunting factions. I'm not a legal expert, but evidently the comment period for federal waterfowl hunting regulations is so short as to be indefensible as a functional mechanism for comments to be collected, summarized, and responded to.

The issue isn't biological; it's administrative.

Lawyers.....burn em all!

[MarshRat89]

Originally Posted by Lreynolds

I don't believe there is much benefit, except as you mentioned in another post, it gives some hunters more lead time to plan vacations from work. I get a number of calls every year from guys that have to schedule their vacations early in the year. Also, it would streamline the process if we could use the same Notice-of-Intent, public meeting, and public comment period process and time-line for ducks/geese that we use for resident game.

However, there probably isn't much of a cost either because 1) populations don't change so much in 1 year that it affects regulations, and 2) the effects of hunting regulations on populations is so minimal that one year of too liberal or too conservative won't make any difference. Note the long periods of regulatory stability, both liberal and restrictive. We already use 3-year averages for our goose harvest strategies, and current-year population information for say speckle-belly geese (late-September survey in SK) comes after we have set the season.

The pressure to set the seasons earlier is coming from the USFWS legal staff who are constantly worried about lawsuits from anti-hunting factions. I'm not a legal expert, but evidently the comment period for federal waterfowl hunting regulations is so short as to be indefensible as a functional mechanism for comments to be collected, summarized, and responded to.

The issue isn't biological; it's administrative.

Speaking of specklebellys, what is the estimated mid continent population? I have no data to support, but it seems to me we are seeing more and more birds each year. Do you expect more liberal bag limits to come? If I'm not mistaken Alberta and other areas allow 3 birds a day.


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[Lreynolds]

Originally Posted by MarshRat89

Speaking of specklebellys, what is the estimated mid continent population? I have no data to support, but it seems to me we are seeing more and more birds each year. Do you expect more liberal bag limits to come? If I'm not mistaken Alberta and other areas allow 3 birds a day.

Let me provide some data:

[Lreynolds]

So what we see with specklebellies is that most of our monitoring data show them to be increasing markedly. Both the mid-winter aerial waterfowl surveys in January each year, and a Lincoln-Peterson index calculated from band-recovery data show that increase. Only the annual aerial survey of fall-staging specklebellies in Saskatchewan shows the population to be constant or maybe slightly decreasing, and we don't know exactly why. However, THAT is the population index that is used in the harvest management plan.

That plan is being re-written by the Central and Mississippi Flyway Technical Committees, and we are making a strong push for the Lincoln-Peterson index as the management metric, which will likely lead to some increase in bag limit. The daily bag limit in the Pacific Flyway is 6 per day.

However ........... Remember what is happening in our state regarding specklebelly numbers:

[Lreynolds]

The population may be increasing, but a smaller % of the population is migrating to Louisiana.

That is actually a quandary that Texas and Louisiana find themselves in regarding goose harvest regulations. The populations are in great shape; snow geese and Canada geese are actually over-abundant at the Flyway and continental scale, but the estimates of birds in our states is declining. So what do we do?

Do we reduce season length and bag limit in hopes that more birds will return to our states?

Is it just uncontrollable changes that we have to live with?

[MarshRat89]

Originally Posted by Lreynolds

The population may be increasing, but a smaller % of the population is migrating to Louisiana.

That is actually a quandary that Texas and Louisiana find themselves in regarding goose harvest regulations. The populations are in great shape; snow geese and Canada geese are actually over-abundant at the Flyway and continental scale, but the estimates of birds in our states is declining. So what do we do?

Do we reduce season length and bag limit in hopes that more birds will return to our states?

Is it just uncontrollable changes that we have to live with?

Thanks for the response. Lots of good data to take into consideration.


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