Hunting regulations for 2014-15 reflect healthy duck populations

Barely a week away from the Sept. 1 opening of dove season in most of Texas and ahead of the Sept. 13 opening of teal season, the state's 300,000 or so wingshooters saw the final pieces in their annual planning puzzle fall into place this past week.

During its meeting Thursday at Houston's Museum of Natural Science, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission approved agency staff's recommendations for dates, bag limits and other rules governing the 2014-15 hunting seasons for ducks, geese and sandhill cranes.

With spring and summer surveys on northern nesting grounds indicating populations of most waterfowl species continue a two-decade stretch of thriving under good habitat conditions, with some species at levels not seen in at least a half-century, it was no surprise this year's package of waterfowl hunting regulations is similar to this past year's.

Duck and goose seasons in Texas North and South duck zones will open Nov. 1 with the season running for 74 days, the longest duck season federal waterfowl management protocols currently allow in most of the Central Flyway. Hunting season for "light" geese (snow, blue, Ross's) will run for 107 days, the maximum length of a hunting season under the federal law that governs hunting of all migratory game birds.

Streak continues

This is the 20th consecutive year federal officials have approved the liberal package of duck and goose hunting regulations as frameworks from which states may set their waterfowl hunting seasons, said Dave Morrison, small-game program director for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

"This is unprecedented, having the liberal package for ducks for this many years," Morrison said following the commission's action.

Those liberal regulations reflect the strength of most of North America's duck species. According to spring and summer surveys on northern nesting grounds, six of the continent's most common species of ducks are at or near population highs not seen for more than 50 years.

This year's combined population index for those 10 most common ducks is 49.2 million, up slightly from a year ago and a stunning 43 percent higher than the long-term average (1955-2013). The 2014 breeding population index is the highest since the annual survey began in 1955.

Only two duck species saw their population estimate decline this spring. And the drop in one species resulted in the only significant change in this year's waterfowl hunting regulations. Canvasbacks' population index fell 13 percent from 2013 numbers.

That decline dropped them slightly below the level at which federal rules allow hunters to include as many as two of the big diving ducks in their six-duck daily aggregate limit. This season, Texas waterfowlers will be allowed to take no more than one per day.

Pintail population down

Pintail, a hugely important duck to Texas' coastal waterfowlers, are the only other duck to see a population decline from the previous year, and one of only two (scaup are the other) of the top 10 duck species with populations below the long-term average.

But the decline was only about 3 percent, and pintails' breeding population index of 3.2 million birds is almost five times that of canvasbacks'. The two-pintail daily bag limit in place for the past several years will remain this season.