Banding Of Mourning Doves PDF Download

Tentative mourning dove management units for the United States are outlined on the basis of an analysis of bandings during the 1953-57 period. The three units -- Eastern, Central, and Western -- most nearly meet the criteria of an ideal management unit: a unit that produces the doves it harvests and does not produce doves that are harvested by other units. As an average for the three management units, 95 percent of a unit's hunting kill is produced inside the unit and 96 percent of a unit's harvested production is shot inside the unit or in Mexico and Central America. Hence the three units are practically independent of each other. These conclusions must be considered only tentative because they are based on insufficient band recoveries and on weighting procedures that need to be evaluated through further research.