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No flying in
face of history
From one season to the next, Texas
waterfowlers can expect change — except in bag limits for September teal
By SHANNON TOMPKINS HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Sept. 9, 2010
Shannon Tompkins Chronicle
Waterfowlers headed out for the upcoming teal-only
hunting season should find their best opportunities in the marshes and coastal
prairie wetlands along the upper Texas coast. Outstanding numbers of
bluewings, the focus of the early season, have made it to the coast over
the past two weeks.
When the 2010 September teal-only
hunting season opens Saturday in Texas for its 16-day run, the daily bag limit
will be four birds, the same as it has been since 1965, when the first
"experimental" teal season was held in 20 states.
It was four teal when the daily bag limit during the
"regular" autumn-winter duck season was as many as 10 ducks.
It was four teal when the regular season bag limit was as
few as three ducks.
This year, Texas waterfowlers will be allowed to take as
many as six teal during the regular duck season that opens in late October.
The population of blue-winged teal rises and falls. But the
four-teal bag limit during September never changes.
Why is that?
The short answer: Because that's what the regular-season
daily duck bag limit was in 1965.
"It's one of those things that nobody ever seemed to
pay attention to when it came to setting regulations, and nobody wanted to
change when we did bring it up. And we've brought it up a lot," said Dave
Morrison, waterfowl program director for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
"I've argued for adjusting the teal bag limit until I'm blue in the face.
"We haven't made any progress."
The limit is an artifact of teal season's origin.
In the mid-1960s, waterfowl managers were struggling with
declining numbers of waterfowlers in the wake of a bust in duck populations
triggered by severe drought on the northern prairies during the early 1960s.
Given the situation, federal waterfowl managers tightened
daily duck bag limits to as few as two birds and shortened seasons to as few as
30 days. And duck hunter numbers fell off the table.
As duck populations began rebounding with better habitat
conditions, a handful of waterfowl managers pushed to expand hunting
opportunities in an effort to recruit more hunters and generate more money
(through the sale of federal "duck stamps") to fund crucial projects
aimed at improving waterfowl habitat.
A teal-only hunting season was one of the ideas.
Initial idea stuck
Blue-winged teal were an almost untapped resource. The small
ducks are early migrants, with many of them leaving their prairie nesting
grounds as early as late August to head toward wintering grounds in Mexico,
Central and South America.
By the time the regular duck season opened in the United
States, a large percentage of bluewings were out of the country. And harvest of
bluewings, one of the most populous ducks in North America, was very light.
The migration chronology of bluewings makes them a perfect
option for an early hunting season. The birds move south before almost all
other ducks, reducing chances hunters would take non-target birds.
Also, the first waves of migrating bluewings are mostly
adult males. Those are the birds least crucial to the population; one adult
male can do the job of breeding with several females.
"There are a lot of excess males, and that's the birds
targeted with teal season," Morrison said. (On average, 65-70 percent of
blue-winged teal taken in Texas during the September season are adult males.)
In 1965, federal waterfowl managers agreed to try an
"experimental" teal season for a couple of years. A nine-day season
would be allowed in 20 states in the Central and Mississippi flyways.
Participating hunters were required to obtain free permits for the season, a
move aimed at giving managers a way to gauge interest and participation in the
season and a pool of hunters to survey about their hunting activity and
success. About 202,000 of the free permits were issued that year.
The 20 states were a mix of northern "production"
states (those where large numbers of bluewings nest), mid-latitude states and
southern states.
When deciding what bag limit to set for the experimental
season, federal waterfowl officials decided to use the regular-season bag
limit. At the time, the bag limit during the regular season was four ducks.
"Experimental" teal seasons were held in 1965 and
1966. No teal season was allowed in 1967 as waterfowl managers looked at the
data they collected from the previous two.
Beginning in 1968, a September teal season became a standard
part of the "early-season" migratory game bird regulations and has
been held every year since with the exception of 1988-1991, when it was
suspended because of dramatic, drought-triggered drops in bluewing populations.
Federal waterfowl managers, who have authority over teal
season regulations, have made several changes in the rules since those first
seasons in the mid-'60s:
Because of issues with hunters taking non-target species,
the option to allow teal seasons was withdrawn from northern
"production" states in the late '60s.
Some willingness to adapt
Start of legal shooting hours was liberalized from a
half-hour before sunrise to sunset.
The option to hold September teal-only hunting seasons was
expanded to several states in the Atlantic Flyway.
In some states — Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky — wood
ducks, as well as all species of teal, are legal game during the September
season.
And in a change that came in 1998 after years of pushing by
Texas waterfowl officials, teal season length is now determined by the spring
breeding population. If the bluewing population is 4.7 million or more, the
season is 16 days. If it's less than 4.7 million , it's nine days.
But the four-teal bag limit persists.
"It's four teal because that's what the regular season
bag limit was in 1965. There's no biological reason why the teal-season bag
limit couldn't be adjusted," TPWD's Morrison said. "But I wouldn't
bet on it happening. Lord knows we've tried."