Mourning Dove Banding Results

Mourning doves are hunted in 38 states. Nationally, more mourning doves are harvested (20-25 million) than all other migratory game bird species combined. In Maryland, dove hunters harvest 150,000-200,000 doves each year.

Despite the importance of the mourning dove as a migratory game bird, the information on which management decisions are based has lagged far behind those of many other migratory game birds, especially waterfowl. For example, in addition to breeding ground surveys, waterfowl managers use annual banding (used to estimate harvest and survival rates) and recruitment surveys (where hunters submit wings and tails that give biologists a measure of how many young were produced that year). Neither source of information has been available for doves. However, that is changing.

A major effort, focused on banding, is underway to improve the information used to manage doves. Data on dove survival and harvest rates is key to understanding the effects of hunting regulations on mourning dove populations.

Since the summer of 2003, Maryland along with 28 other states has been banding mourning doves during July and August. Birds are marked with U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service metal leg bands containing a unique identification number and a toll-free telephone number that hunters can use to report the band. Hunters reporting bands are asked to provide the harvest location and date.

During the four years of banding, over 150,000 doves have been banded across the country. In Maryland, 500-700 doves have been banded each year. The most striking result thus far has been the high percentage of banded doves that were harvested in the same state in which they were marked (i.e., they are locally produced). Of over 100 doves banded in Maryland that were shot and reported by hunters, only a very few were shot outside the state. Most birds were shot within a few miles of where they were banded. This pattern holds even for southern states like Florida and Georgia, where over 90% of the harvested doves were locally produced.

A regular banding program also provides a means to estimate the harvest rate (% of the population that is killed by hunters) and the annual survival rate (% of the population that is alive from 1 year to the next). For Maryland, the harvest rate has averaged 7.8% for adult doves and 10.7% for immature doves. The annual survival rate for doves banded in Maryland has averaged 45% for adult doves and 22% for immature doves.

A separate project is underway to develop a survey to track the number of young doves produced each year. Twenty states, including Maryland, are collecting large numbers of wings from doves shot during the first week of the hunting season. The wings (about 35,000) each year, are reviewed by biologists who use feather characteristics to classify the wing as an adult or young bird.